And another from Gu Gwang-ho, one of the Asia Press's citizen journalists said:The source said: "While his wife was away on business he killed his eldest daughter and, because his son saw what he had done, he killed his son as well. When the wife came home, he offered her food, saying: 'We have meat.'
"But his wife, suspicious, notified the Ministry of Public Security, which led to the discovery of part of their children's bodies under the eaves."
The big question here is whether this is all true or new urban legends. Considering this is North Korea and taking into account the country's propensity to keep secrets and publish propaganda pieces - we'll likely never get real confirmation from their end. But Asia Press has worked with citizen reporters in the famine-struck regions of North and South Hwanghae for the past year, and The Independent considers their reports credible."There was an incident when a man was arrested for digging up the grave of his grandchild and eating the remains."
Sadly, this isn't the first time we've heard reports of cannibalism from North Korea. Back in 2003, during another food shortage there were refugee accounts that people in the country began killing and eating their children and then selling their children's corpses. The Telegraph's Mark Nicol reported at the time:
And then there's the fact that we know North Korea was devastated by storms and flooding in the summer of 2012. You can't hide a tropical cyclone. Thing have grown so desperate, that they almost took South Korean aid this September, which is a big deal considering the rocky relationship between the two countries and the North's fierce pride of independence. Reports of previous famines have been well documented and Asia Press claims that as many as 10,000 people may have died because of the "Hidden Famine" this year.Aid agencies are alarmed by refugees' reports that children have been killed and corpses cut up by people desperate for food. Requests by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to be allowed access to "farmers' markets", where human meat is said to be traded, have been turned down by Pyongyang, citing "security reasons".
About four years ago I watched a special on French TV. A French film crew toured through North Korea making a documentary. It depicted an entirely different North Korea than is portrayed in the western media. The country is productive and beautiful. The farmers, although using antiquated agricultural machinery, were harvesting bountiful crops. The children were well fed, clean, clothed and educated. The cities were dreary places, not up to shiny western standards, but the countryside was certainly not what we have been led to believe. The cannibalism tales I think are on a par with Saddam's troops bayoneting babies in incubators in Kuwait. Pathetic propaganda designed to make acceptable the dropping of dumbocracy on North Korea from under the wings of a fleet of drones.