(사진제공=AP통신)
(사진제공=AP통신)
(사진제공=AP통신)
(사진제공=AP통신)
[순안=AP/KNS뉴스통신] 심각한 식량난으로 북한주민 600만명이 칼날위에 놓인 고통스런 생활을 하고 있는 것으로 확인됐다. 북한 당국은 엄격한 모니터링을 조건으로 내세우고 국제사회에 식량지원을 요청하고 있다고 해외언론은 전했다.
그러나 국제사회는 핵 확산과 인권탄압 문제로 북한에 대한 식량지원에 선뜻 나서지 않고 있는 가운데 유럽연합은 1,450만 달러 상당의 식량만을 지원하기로 했다.
해외에서는 북한 당국이 내년에 돌아오는 김일성 탄생 100주년 기념일을 위해 식량을 비축하고 있다는 의심하고 있는 관측도 보도되고 있다.
(영문기사 원문)
NKorea food shortage worst in years despite farms
SUNAN, North Korea (AP) — It's an unlikely sight: hundreds of ostriches, a bird native to sunny Africa, squatting and squabbling in the morning chill on a sprawling farm in North Korea. Even stranger: In winter, some wear quilted vests.
Built on the heels of a 1990s famine, the ostrich farm was a bold, expensive investment that the state hoped would help feed its people and provide goods to export. Years later, ostrich meat is the specialty at some of Pyongyang's finest restaurants, but appears out of the reach of millions of hungry North Koreans.
The showcase farm is an idiosyncratic approach to one of the biggest issues confronting North Korea: food.
North Korea's food shortage has reached a crisis point this year, aid workers say, largely because of shocks to the agricultural sector, including torrential rains and the coldest winter in 60 years. Six million North Koreans are living "on a knife edge" and will go hungry without immediate food aid, the World Food Program said, calling in April for $224 million in emergency aid.
North Korean officials have made quiet pleas for help, citing rising global food prices, shortfalls in fertilizer and the winter freeze that killed their wheat harvest. In return, they agreed to strict monitoring conditions — a rare concession.
Donations, however, have not been flooding the nation considered a political pariah for its nuclear defiance and alleged human rights abuses. The European Union is pitching in $14.5 million (10 million euros), only enough to feed one-tenth of the hungry until the October harvest. The U.S. has not said whether it will provide aid.
Skeptics suspect officials are stockpiling food for gift baskets to be distributed during next year's celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of late President Kim Il Sung's birth. Others wonder whether the distribution of food can be monitored closely enough to ensure it gets to the hungry, not the military and power brokers in Pyongyang.
김희광 기자 april4241@naver.com
