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IPFS News Link • Economy - International
Hunger crisis grips North Korea as food runs short
• www.msnbc.msn.comHAEJU, North Korea — In a pediatric hospital in North Korea's most productive farming province, children lay two to a bed. All showed signs of severe malnutrition: skin infections, patchy hair, listless apathy.
"Their mothers have to bring them here on bicycles," said duty doctor Jang Kum Son in the Yellow Sea port city of Haeju. "We used to have an ambulance but it's completely broken down. One mother traveled 72 kilometers (45 miles). By the time they get here, it's often too late."
It's also getting late for North
Korea to get the massive amount of food aid it claims to need before the
harsh winter sets in. The country's dysfunctional food-distribution
system, rising global commodities prices and sanctions imposed over
Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs had contributed to what appears
to be a hunger crisis in the North, even before devastating summer
floods and typhoons compounded the emergency.