Korean famine goes 'unnoticed'

BY PATRICK WEST
NORTH KOREANS are being driven to cannibalism in the face of acute famine, the Irish aid agency Trocaire reports.
The charity's parliamentary delegation has returned from its mission to the afflicted region with reports of Koreans eating roots and grass and even bartering scrap metal from defunct factories in exchange for rice in neighbouring China.
Trocaire,which has been sending relief to the area since July, and its all-Ireland delegation visited the region last month in an effort to make a fuller assessment of the catastrophe that has hit this country.
Already 10,000 children are estimated to be dying every month in North Korea. rudimentary medical resources, and with little or no coal or other energy sources in the country, the upcoming winter, when temperatures are expected to plummet to -40 Celsius, is likely to hit children, the elderly and the sick the hardest.
Eamon Gilmore, a Democratic Left member of the Irish Parliament, said: "It is hard to see how these most vulnerable people are going to survive."
The desperate plight of North Koreans has been exacerbated by their government's traditionally hostile attitude to the outside world. By restricting media access to the world's news agencies, North Korea's famine seems to have gone largely unnoticed.
Trocaire has raised over £1.5 million in Ireland to tackle the effects of the famine.