N. Korea Famine Stuns Lawmaker With Rations Reduced, Millions Eating Weeds, Bark For Survival

Their rations reduced to 5 ounces of rice a day, rural North Koreans stripped grass and weeds from the fields and bark from the trees - feeding them to their starving families before the eyes of a stunned American lawmaker.

North Korea is descending into a “hell of a severe famine,” with as many as 8 million people at risk of dying from malnutrition and disease, said Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio, who just returned from the stricken communist country.

The grim assessment Tuesday came as relief efforts to prevent a full-scale catastrophe mounted amid an unprecedented disclosure by the secretive regime that 134 children have so far died of malnutrition.

Hall, a hunger expert, said he was “stunned” by the widespread misery he saw during a visit to North Korea April 4-7. He described emaciated soldiers whose uniforms hung from their bodies; people foraging for grass and clover; children who looked half their age suffering from stunted growth, distended bellies, dysentery and other ailments related to malnutrition.

At one orphanage half the children about 6 months old appeared severely ill and probably would not live to see the next harvest, he said.

A food distribution center he visited had no food, and hospitals had virtually no medicine or heat.

Hall said he saw virtually no trees outside the capital city of Pyongyang - most having been cut down for fuel.

Since his first visit last year, he said, daily rations appear to have plunged by as much as two-thirds, with most people now receiving only a half bowl of rice. “Everyone is systematically starving together,” Hall said at a Tokyo news conference.

After months of negotiation, American grain trader Cargill Inc. announced it will barter about 20,000 tons of wheat for about 4,000 tons of zinc in what is thought to be the first direct sale of U.S. wheat to North Korea since the Korean War ended in 1953. The United States has a trade embargo against North Korea, but Cargill received an exemption.

In Seoul, religious and civic groups said they will raise about $19 million to buy 110,000 tons of corn for their starving northern siblings after the South Korean government loosened restrictions on such private aid. The South Korean Red Cross also sent more than $1 million worth of food and vegetable seed to the north.

And the U.N. World Food Program last week doubled its latest appeal for food aid to 203,000 tons of food - still just a fraction of the 2.3 million tons the relief organization said the nation needed.

Asked about reports that North Korea is diverting a huge portion of its scarce capital for military purposes - the regime reportedly spends $6 billion annually on its defense budget, including a missile development program - Hall said urgent humanitarian needs outweigh political considerations.