Starving for Truth: Part 2 - What happened during the North Korean famine #NorthKorea #Famine

People who are starving and wasting away have two options: wait and hope for things to get better or do everything in their power to find food. The first episode of “Starving for Truth” covered the many factors that led to the North Korean famine. In this episode we will examine the desperation that came during the famine and the factors that prolonged it.

01:26 The Public Distribution System (or PDS) and the inequality of the communist system
03:19 Impact on Kim Jong Il's Inner Circle
04:00 The Black Market
04:52 The dead and the desperate search for food
06:04 Corn gruel
07:54 Giving up
08:23 Refugees in China
09:01 Lasting scars

The Public Distribution System (or PDS) and the inequality of the communist system

North Korean society operated on a centralized system of distribution. All goods and many services were distributed by and through the North Korean government, with food being at the core of that system.

Impact on Kim Jong Il's Inner Circle

The North Korean famine was so severe that it reached even the core of Kim Jong Il’s inner circle. Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland said in their book “Famine in North Korea” that about 4 million people were spared from the extreme starvation that took place during the famine. But these people were not spared from all of it. They said:

“Many if not most of this group of four million almost certainly experienced food shortages and even hunger at some time during the famine. The food crisis of the 1990s thus cut at the very base of the regime’s support and posed serious problems of political legitimacy and control.”

The Black Market

As the 90s progressed, the PDS went belly up. As food distributed by the PDS slowly dried up, farmers began to sell grain on the black market for 17 to 26 times the cost, according to Andrew Natsios. He said:

“This created an irresistible incentive for farmers to hide food from the state and sell it on the markets.”

The problem compounded itself. The less food the PDS had to sell, the higher the price on the black market went. The higher the prices on the black market, the more the incentive to sell on the black market. By the late 1990s, many refugees reported that the PDS had completely broken down and food was not being delivered except on national holidays.

The dead and the desperate search for food

The exact death toll of the Great North Korean Famine is still unknown but experts estimate that between 240,000 and 3.5 million lives were lost. But the statistic alone does not fully capture the utter horror that the North Korean people experienced.

According to the testimony of refugees in our network, bodies began to pile up on the side of the roads and near rivers. The stench of death came and with it, a sense of impending desperation. People sold their clothing, furniture, homes, their sons and daughters, anything to stave off starvation. Refugees have reported to our staff many accounts of cannibalism in the face of hunger.

Refugees in China

It is a crime for a North Korean to step into China without permission and yet hundreds of thousands did just that in the wake of the famine. Most of those who did were women and most of these women were sold as forced brides to China’s poor and disabled men.

North Korean refugees do not receive any rights in China, which is why people were able to sell and trade North Koreans like property.

You can find out more about the refugee crisis in our video series “Breaking Down North Korea.”

The scars from the famine

The mission of Crossing Borders is to show the compassion of Christ to North Koreans and their children.

Crossing Borders Ministry is a Christian, faith-based 501(c)3 non-profit that offers assistance to North Korean refugees and their children living in China and South Korea.

Elim House is a new initiative launched in 2020 to provide respite housing to battered North Korean women who live in South Korea. Learn more here:

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