Some 6.9 million North Koreans have not received the food aid they desperately need, a report presented Monday to the UN said. The report also urged "pro-active" global action against human rights abuses in the communist country.
"Some 8.7 million people are food insecure and thus need help," said the report prepared by Vitit Muntarbhorn, who is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in North Korea. "However, at the beginning of 2009, only 1.8 million people were receiving food assistance because of severe resourcing shortfalls," he added.
The report, which was presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Monday, was based on information provided by governments, civil societies and UN agencies, as Pyongyang had "declined to cooperate" with the author.
Despite the dire situation on access to food, "there have been some unconscionable developments with regard to the negative attitude of the authorities towards the general population," said Muntarbhorn. This include Pyongyangs moves to ban sale of rice at markets, curtail women under the age of 49 from trading as well as force farmers to provide army personnel with food.
Muntarbhorn described the overall human rights situation in the country as "dire and desperate." "At the pinnacle there is an oppressive regime, bent on personal survival, under which ordinary people of the land undergo intolerable and interminable suffering," he said.
He urged the international community to "take more pro-active measures... to adopt an integrated approach to impel more protection for the inhabitants, with due regard for the responsibility of state authorities and their accountability for the widespread and systematic violence and violations that have led to the interminable sufferings of millions of innocent people."
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