Dandong, China — Although the North Korean food crisis is serious, the probability of death from starvation is relatively low, because the viability of kotjebi existence has improved.
A resident of Pyongsung, North Pyongan Province said that “Around Shinuiju Station approximately 300 or so kotjebi gather at night. Their numbers have increased a lot. They eat garbage on the streets and their hygiene is terrible, so many of them suffer from food poisoning.”
He, however, relayed that “The survival ability of the kotjebi is stronger than in the past. The situation of the kotjebi is sometimes even better than that of households who can only afford two meals a day. When they go around the jangmadang, some citizens give them money or food.”
He said that “Some children among the kotjebi are picking pockets as a group and stirring up fights between kotjebi groups.”
This year, there have been no sources from North Korea who have been able to confirm rumors about massive kotjebi deaths from starvation like in the late 1990s’ crisis. One source from Anjoo, South Pyongan Province, said that “I met a person who had witnessed the removal of two kotjebi corpses, but he didn’t know the exact cause of the deaths.”
The source continued that “Kotjebi children will not go to a nursing facility; they say that if they fall under the control of the facility, they will die of hunger. Lately those children say that they ‘don’t need to go there because begging is much more effective than government distribution.’”
A source from North Hamkyung Province revealed in a telephone interview with the Daily NK on the 22nd that “In an orphanage in Nanam-district in Chongjin, several children died of malnutrition and the condition of the rest of the children was also not so good.”
He relayed that “Citizens in Chongjin insist that if they were released to beg for food on the streets, they would never have died for hunger. An orphanage that could not afford to feed its orphans captured those children, so they died.”
He added that “I have not heard of kotjebi dying of hunger in Chongjin. These days, they are so cunning that they won’t easily die from starvation.”
