UN EXPERT ON RIGHT TO FOOD CALLS ON DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA, CHINA TO “STOP REPRESSION OF HUNGER REFUGEES”

10 May 2004


The Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, issued the following statement today:


“For more than five years, a terrible humanitarian catastrophe has affected the population of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Millions of people, especially children and older people, are suffering from hunger, severe malnutrition and violations of their right to food.

The World Food Programme is currently appealing for funds to provide emergency food assistance to 6.5 million people.

Many families from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have tried to escape hunger by crossing the border into China. These refugees from hunger are crossing the rivers Tumen or Yalu, which run 1,300 kilometres along the border separating the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and China.

But the Chinese authorities, helped by secret agents from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, have hunted down these refugees from hunger. In the border regions of Dandong and Sinuiju, several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United States and Europe have documented disturbing details about this manhunt.

The Chinese authorities have reportedly offered a reward of $200 to anyone who will provide information to the police regarding the hiding places of these refugee families.

The people arrested -- men, women and children -- are sent back by the Chinese authorities to the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. According to information from international organizations, NGOs and the International Committee of the Red Cross, heavy punishments are regularly applied to these refugees from hunger who have been repatriated by force. The most common punishment is to sentence the whole family to long years in camps. The imposition of death sentences has also been alleged.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food states that the systematic and widespread persecution of the refugees from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from hunger on Chinese soil constitutes a grave and repeated violation of the human right to food, which is protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

He appeals urgently to the authorities of China to put an immediate end to these persecutions and to refrain from handing over to the authorities of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea any refugees from hunger arrested in China.

The Special Rapporteur demands that the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Government of China scrupulously respect the human right to food of all people in their respective territories”.


* *** *