Harry Clynch

North Korea is on the verge of a humanitarian collapse

Kim Jong-un returns after one of his longest ever spells out of public view (photo: KCNA)

During the Trump years, North Korea was hardly ever out of the news. From the US President’s threats of ‘fire and fury’ against the rogue state, to dramatic meetings with Kim Jong-un in Singapore and Hanoi, the world’s attention was firmly focused on Pyongyang. But with Trump out of office, the chaos of Covid-19, and the fall of Afghanistan, North Korea has fallen off the agenda. That could well be a terrible mistake, considering the state’s pressing humanitarian crisis.

Following the coronavirus outbreak last January, North Korea shut its borders almost completely. As a result trade with China, by far its biggest economic partner, has decreased by at least 80 per cent. In the third quarter of this year, the country’s entire trade with nearby Russia was only a pitiful $651 (£480) – by contrast, this trade totalled $34 million (£25m) in 2018. There are reports of sky-high inflation, with prices for essential goods in Pyongyang rocketing. In June, shampoo was being sold for $200 (£148) in the capital. Even by North Korean standards, the economic situation is dire.

Hand-in-hand with these developments are worrying food shortages. Covid-related restrictions on imports, combined with torrential rainfall last August that devastated rice fields, has jeopardised North Korea’s already weak supply-chains. None of this has been helped by the regime spending the majority of the pandemic turning away food parcels from other countries in case they were infected with Covid. Little wonder the US Department of Agriculture predicts that around 60 per cent of North Korea’s 25 million-strong population is ‘food insecure’.

In June, shampoo was being sold for $200 in the capital. Even by North Korean standards, the economic situation is dire

Kim Jong-un himself, who only recently re-emerged from one of his longest-ever spells away from the public eye, has drawn parallels between the current situation and that of the ‘Arduous

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