North Korean children are reportedly being secretly dropped off at orphanages by desperate parents unable to feed them, amid chronic food shortages.
The practice is said to be fuelled by the belief that orphanages are receiving supplies of food and medicine donated by the international community, despite restrictive Covid-19 policies that have severely hampered the flow of overseas aid.
“Women who are starving to death are secretly leaving their children, at night or in the early morning, and then they disappear with no trace,” a source in South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, told Radio Free Asia.
Border closures introduced to prevent the spread of Covid-19, natural disasters that have wiped out crops, and sanctions to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme have contributed to widespread food shortages and malnutrition that experts believe have pushed the country to the brink of famine.
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