North Korea Pride Blamed For Slow Aid Leaders Won’t Admit Woes As Children Face Starvation

North Korea is too proud to admit it is suffering from severe food shortages, an international relief official said Monday after a visit to the communist country.

World Vision International has sent seven missions to North Korea in the past three months to help 2.6 million children under age 5, the segment of the population the agency says is at greatest risk of starvation.

North Korea is in the grips of its worst drought this century, following two years of serious flooding that devastated crops and left the nation of 24 million people with a severe food crisis. Many have resorted to eating wild grass and tree bark.

Watt Santatiwat, the agency’s vice president for the Asia-Pacific region, said North Korea doesn’t “want to admit to the world that people are starving, or to allow the media to take pictures of the people who are on the verge of dying.”

“It goes against their very nature and culture to admit they need help from the outside world,” said Santatiwat, who has made two visits to North Korea.

World Vision estimates about 5 million people, especially children under 6 and adults over 60, face possible starvation.

Santatiwat said the international community has shown only mild interest in North Korea because foreigners are not allowed to “travel freely in the country and report without restrictions concerning the extent of the suffering.”

The reclusive communist state, which preaches self-reliance as a guiding philosophy, is already dependent on outside food aid. U.N. agencies have said the country needed 800,000 tons of emergency food assistance before its October harvest to avert famine.

Santatiwat said he saw empty farms, idle greenhouses and factories, and fields of corn drying up because of the drought.

Dave Toycen, another World Vision representative, said North Korea must choose between “saving face or saving lives.”

“It’s the politics of adults that are going to continue to kill the children of North Korea, and unfortunately, as we look at this situation, it’s only going to get worse,” he said.