North Korea has suffered serious food shortages in recent decades, including famine in the 1990s, often as a result of natural disasters, and international experts have warned that border closures during the Covid-19 pandemic worsened matters.
ANSEONG — North Korea's food situation is"still bad" despite an uptick in trade with China, the South's unification minister, charged with handling relations with its neighbour, said on Monday .
Shortages had been ameliorated by imports from neighbouring China, Mr Kwon added, though hunger deaths in some regions were mainly due to distribution problems. As the pandemic gripped the world in 2020, the regime of Mr Kim Jong Un had embarked on a massive exercise to seal the North's border with China and Russia, cutting routes used by smugglers and defectors.
For years, United Nations experts have criticised China for sending back North Korean defectors, whom it regards as illegal migrants fleeing their country for economic reasons.
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