North Korea facing health and food crisis, says Amnesty International

Human rights group calls on international community to help end regime’s ‘systematic neglect’ and prevent humanitarian disaster.

A desperate picture of the health of North Korea‘s population is painted by a report describing a country of stunted children, where the hungry eat poisonous plants and pigfeed, amputations are conducted without anaesthetic and doctors are paid in cigarettes.

Almost two decades after it was hit by a famine that killed an estimated 2 million people, North Korea again faces widespread food shortages and is unable to provide even basic healthcare for its people, according to the report, published today by Amnesty International.

The human rights organisation accuses the North Korean regime of systematic neglect and calls on the international community to intervene to prevent a humanitarian disaster.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/15/north-korea-health-crisis-amnesty