North Korea is suffering from a food crisis meaning a swathe of its 26 million population face starvation – but Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un is definitely not one of them.
The country’s food production and supply have failed to recover from strict Covid restrictions, The Daily Express US reports, which affected food imports from China and Russia.
Under Kim Jong-un’s orders, Pyongyang sealed off its borders with both counties, building new fences stretching hundreds of miles. The move meant it also shut off vital access to grain, fertiliser and farming machinery.
However, not everyone in North Korea is suffering from empty plates with artificial intelligence being used to keep track of the leader’s weight. And according to the AI, this has ballooned to around 308lbs (22 stone).
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A UN report has noted the 5’6″ dictator spends more than £23million a year on imports of luxury liqueurs.
In the country, a combination of meagre production and the slashing of imports means a “devastating tragedy is unfolding”, according to Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), an organisation that assists North Korean escapees.
Sources inside the closed-off country told the BBC they are terrified of starving to death and fear they could be executed for breaking the strict rules.
One construction worker living near the Chinese border, whose name was changed for his own safety, told the outlet that food supplies have become so low that five people in his village had already died from starvation.
He said: “At first, I was afraid of dying from Covid, but then I began to worry about starving to death.”
A market trader from the country’s north revealed nearly three quarters of the products in her local market used to come from China. Now, it is completely empty.
She added that she can’t earn any income and added that her family has never seen food supplies become so scarce.
The situation has gotten so bad that people from her area have been knocking on her door in a desperate search for food” she said.
Another woman living in Pyongyang, said that a family of three was found dead from starvation in their home.
In December 2021, authorities claimed Kim was healthy and had been eating less “for the sake of the country”.
Kwon Tae-jin, a senior economist at the private GS&J Institute in South Korea, told Associated Press in March that Pyongyang is “going backward and returning to the past”.
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