"Children[edit]
Children, especially those under two years old, were most affected by both the famine and the poverty of the period. The World Health Organization reported death rates for children at 93 out of every 1000, while those of infants were cited at 23 out of every 1000.[45] Undernourished mothers found it difficult to breast-feed. No suitable alternative to the practice was available. Infant formula was not produced locally, and only a small amount of it was imported.[34]
The famine resulted in a population of homeless, migrant children known as Kotjebi.[46]
Estimated number of deaths[edit]
The exact number of deaths during the acute phase of the crisis, from 1994 to 1998, will probably never be fully determined, since the government has refused to release any of this information to the outside world. Independent analysis estimates that between 800,000 and 1,500,000 people died due to starvation, disease, or sickness caused by lack of food.[47][48]
Haggard and Noland reviewed all estimates of the "excess" deaths caused by the famine. Estimates range from 220,000 to 4,000,000 between 1995 and 1998, as claimed by the North Korean government.[49]
In 1998, US Congressional staffers who visited the country reported that: "Therefore, we gave a range of estimates, from 300,000 to 800,000 dying per year, peaking in 1997. That would put the total number of deaths from the North Korean food shortage at between 900,000 and 2.4 million between 1995 and 1998."[50] Higher estimates range from 2 to 3 million.[7] North Korean officials have put the figures as low as 250,000 in confidential discussions. Both the extreme high and low ends of the estimates are considered inaccurate.[51]
A survey by North Korea's Public Security Ministry suggests that 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 people died from 1995 to March 1998, although the numbers may have been inflated in order to secure additional food aid.[52] The most sophisticated estimates used to measure excess deaths based on different data from multiple sources give a total number ranging from 600,000 to 1,000,000, or 3 to 5 percent of the pre-crisis population[53]
The consequences of the famine are still playing out – most notably, in the breakdown of the public distribution system and the government's food rationing system and other economic institutions, as well as increasing self-reliance by North Koreans in providing for themselves and their families.[54]
Robinson's team found 245,000 "excess" deaths (an elevated mortality rate as a result of premature death), 12 percent of the population in one affected region. Taking those results as the upper limit and extrapolating across the entire North Korean population across the country's provinces produces an upper limit of 2,000,000 famine-related deaths.[54]
According to the recent research by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2011, the likely range of excess deaths between 1993 and 2000 was between 500,000 and 600,000, and a total of 600,000 to 1,000,000 excess deaths from the year 1993 to the year 2008.[8][page needed][9]"
North Korean famine - Wikipedia
first hand account: A RIVER IN DARKNESS by Masaji Ishikawa , Risa Kobayashi , Martin Brown | Kirkus Reviews
first hand account: A RIVER IN DARKNESS by Masaji Ishikawa , Risa Kobayashi , Martin Brown | Kirkus Reviews
image by DonkeyHotey
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