North Korea’s Food Situation ‘Far More Hopeless Than Expected’

Good Friends has published its latest dispatch from the Untergang in Pyongyang: all food rations in the capital appear to have stopped, and there are rising fears of famine in the countryside:

North Korea’s food shortages are so bad that even its elite citizens in Pyongyang will not get state food rations until September, a local relief group said Thursday. Seoul-based Good Friends said the North has decided to suspend state food rations in the capital city for six months from this month amid the worsening food situation. The Buddhist group, however, did not reveal the source of that information.

A grim prediction is spreading that there will be massive deaths from famine in provincial areas of the impoverished country around May, it also said. It indicated the decision is unprecedented, quoting some senior Pyongyang officials as saying food distribution was not even cut for such a long period of time during the country’s worst food crisis in the late 1990s. [Yonhap, via the Hanky]

Good Friends quotes a North Korean official in Pyongyang, who says the situation is “far more hopeless than expected.” The rumor in North Korea is that North and South Hamgyeong will be out of food by the end of this month, and — I emphasize, this is merely local rumor — we’ll soon be seeing massive loss of life in large cities like Chongjin and Hamhung.

The AP also picks up the story. More background and context here and here.

Neither tantrums in the Rodong Sinmun nor — I regret to say it — famine in the countryside will be remembered fifty years from now, but the regime’s inability to feed its elite will unleash forces that will fracture the regime. The North Korea will seize control of our headlines again this year. The regime’s sudden collapse would be the most bloodless end to it … and probably not the most likely.