North Koreans 'starving to death' as impact of Covid worsens

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Written by northsouth

Category: Asia

Published: 04 March 2021

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SEOUL - North Koreans are “starving to death” due to the worsening impact of the coronavirus pandemic, a United Nations investigator has said.

Drastic measures taken to contain Covid-19 have exacerbated human rights abuses and economic hardship for the country’s citizens, UN's Tomas Ojea Quintana said in a report seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

North Korea, which has yet to report any confirmed Covid-19 cases despite sharing a border with China, has imposed border closings, banned most international travel and severely restricted movement domestically in the past year.

Reduced trade with China has led to a significant decrease in market activities, reducing earnings for many families reliant on small-scale market activities, Ojea Quintana said.

“There have been shortages of essential goods, medicines, agricultural inputs for farming and raw materials for state-owned factories,” Quintana said, voicing concern typhoons and floods last year could lead to a “serious food crisis”.

“Deaths by starvation have been reported, as has an increase in the number of children and elderly people who have resorted to begging as families are unable to support them.”

Ojea Quintana, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the country, said further isolation with the outside world during the Covid-19 pandemic appeared to “exacerbate entrenched human rights violations.”

He urged North Korean authorities to ensure the “negative consequences of prevention measures do not become disproportionately greater than the impact of the pandemic itself”.

Humanitarian operations have nearly ground to a halt and only three international aid workers remain in North Korea while relief goods have been stuck at the Chinese border for months due to import restrictions, he said.

There was no immediate reply to a Reuters query to North Korea’s mission to the UN in Geneva.

Pyongyang does not recognise the UN investigator’s mandate and has previously rejected UN allegations of crimes against humanity committed by the state.

How has North Korea fared during the pandemic?

North Korea’s economy has been hit by the coronavirus pandemic and floods this year, which prompted Pyongyang to shut its border with China and ditch outside aid.

The isolated economy, which is already suffering under US and UN sanctions, may have contracted by 8.5% last year, Fitch Solutions said, while South Korea’s Hana Institute of Finance estimated a decline of up to 10%.

The most significant blow came from a drop in trade with China, its top ally, which is responsible for around 90% of North Korea trade.

Two-way trade plunged nearly 80% to $534.1 million last year as of November from the same period of 2019, Chinese customs data showed.

The pandemic likely had a more significant impact than international sanctions, severing nearly all foreign currency sources, including tourism, labour exports and overseas restaurants, experts say.

Reduced trade also led to a lack of fertiliser and farming tools, and severe floods exacerbated North Korea’s chronic food shortages.

The UN’s World Food Programme said in July, just before the monsoon season, that more than 10 million people, or 40% of the population, were already facing food shortages.

Economic concerns triggered volatility in fuel and food prices and exchange rates in unofficial markets, where most ordinary North Koreans buy their food.

What are cases like now?

The country claims to have had no Covid cases but it is set to receive 1.7 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine via the COVAX facility by the end of May, allocation figures from the GAVI vaccine alliance and World Health Organization (WHO) showed on Tuesday.

‘Spike’ in Afghan civilian casualties after peace talks began: UN report

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Written by northsouth

Category: Asia

Published: 24 February 2021

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GENEVA - Civilian casualties in Afghanistan witnessed a sharp rise since peace negotiations started in September last year, even though overall deaths and injuries dropped in 2020, compared to the previous year, according to a UN human rights report launched Tuesday.

In their annual Afghanistan Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict Annual Report, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Assistance Mission in the country (UNAMA) documented some 8,820 civilian casualties (3,035 deaths and 5,785 injuries) in 2020, about 15 per cent less than in 2019.

It was also the first time the figure fell below 10,000 since 2013.

However, the country remains amongst the “deadliest places in the world to be a civilian”, according to Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“I am particularly appalled by the high numbers of human rights defenders, journalists, and media workers killed since peace negotiations began in September”, she said.

At least 11 rights defenders, journalists and media workers lost their lives since September, resulting in many professionals exercising self-censorship in their work, quitting their jobs, and even leaving their homes and the country – in hope it will improve their safety.

Rise in ‘targeted killings’

According to the report, the overall drop in civilian casualties in 2020 was due to fewer casualties from suicide attacks by anti-Government elements in populated areas, as well as drop in casualties attributed to international military forces.

There was, however, a “worrying rise” in targeted killings by such elements – up about 45 per cent over 2019. The use of pressure-plate improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by the Taliban, air strikes by the Afghan Air Force, and ground engagements also resulted in increased casualties, the report said.

According to the report, anti-Government elements bore responsibility for about 62 per cent civilian casualties, while pro-Government forces were responsible for about 25 per cent casualties. About 13 per cent of casualties were attributed to crossfire and other incidents.

2020 could have been ‘a year of peace’

Deborah Lyons, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan and head of UNAMA, called on all parties to take immediate and concrete action to protect civilians, urging them “not to squander a single day in taking the urgent steps to avoid more suffering”.

“2020 could have been the year of peace in Afghanistan. Instead, thousands of Afghan civilians perished due to the conflict”, Ms. Lyons said.

The “overriding objective” of the report is to provide the parties responsible with the facts, and recommendations, so they take immediate and concrete steps to protect civilians, she added.

Ms. Lyons highlighted that “ultimately, the best way to protect civilians is to establish a humanitarian ceasefire” – a call consistently made by Secretary-General António Guterres and the Security Council.

“Parties refusing to consider a ceasefire must recognize the devastating consequences of such a posture on the lives of Afghan civilians.”

‘Shocking toll’ on women and children

The report went on to note that the years-long conflict in Afghanistan “continues to wreak a shocking and detrimental toll” on women and children, who accounted for 43 per cent of all civilian casualties – 30 per cent children and 13 per cent women.

“This report shows the acute, lasting needs of victims of the armed conflict and demonstrates how much remains to be done to meet those needs in a meaningful way”, High Commissioner Bachelet said.

“The violence that has brought so much pain and suffering to the Afghan population for decades must stop and steps towards reaching a lasting peace must continue.”

Attacking civilians ‘serious violations’

With the conflict continuing, parties must do more to prevent and mitigate civilian casualties, the report said, urging them to fully implement the report’s recommendations and to ensure that respect and protection of human rights is central to the ongoing peace negotiations.

It also reminded the parties that deliberately attacking civilians or civilian objects are serious violations of international humanitarian law that may amount to war crimes.

Thousands protest in Myanmar after 2 demonstrators killed

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Written by northsouth

Category: Asia

Published: 22 February 2021

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YANGON - Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across Myanmar again Sunday, a day after two people were killed when police and security forces used live and rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannon and slingshots against those protesting the military's February 1 coup.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the deadly violence. "The use of lethal force, intimidation & harassment against peaceful demonstrators is unacceptable," he said on Twitter late Saturday.

Plans for more protests Monday persisted, with a call made Sunday for a general strike by a group called Gen Z along with the Civil Disobedience Movement. They called for people to come together for a "spring revolution" on the "Five Twos," a reference to the digits in Monday's date, 22/2/2021, and a nod to the 8888 pro-democracy uprising in Myanmar on August 8, 1988.

An internet shutdown Monday morning has been rumored in Myanmar, with the U.S. embassy among those warning people to be prepared for a blackout.

NetBlocks, which tracks internet disruptions and shutdowns, reported that in Myanmar "real-time network data show connectivity down to just 13% of ordinary levels as of 1 a.m. local time." The nation was entering the second week of nightly internet shutdowns, the organization reported.

On Sunday, Facebook took down the main page of the Myanmar military, known as Tatmadaw, citing the firm's policy of prohibiting the incitement of violence, Reuters reported.

A company spokesperson said in a statement that the page was removed "for repeated violations of our Community Standards prohibiting incitement of violence and coordinating harm."

On February 11, Facebook announced it was limiting the distribution of all content from the military's pages and profiles "in line with our global policies on repeat offenders of misinformation."

Twenty people were wounded in Saturday's violence, according to the head of a volunteer emergency service, and 569 have been detained in connection with the military takeover, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an activist group, said.

Early Sunday, police arrested a famous actor, Lu Min, who had taken part in protests in Yangon and was one of six celebrities the army said were wanted under an anti-incitement law.

The army accused Lu Min of encouraging civil servants to join in the protest. If convicted, he faces a two-year prison sentence.

In a video posted on Lu Min's Facebook page, his wife said police had come to their home in Yangon and taken him away.

"They forced open the door and took him away and didn't tell me where they were taking him. I couldn't stop them. They didn't tell me," Khin Sabai Oo said.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States was "deeply concerned" by reports that security forces had fired on protesters and continued to detain and harass demonstrators and others.

Britain said it would consider further action against those involved in violence against protesters, and the French Foreign Ministry called the violence "unacceptable."

In a Twitter message, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called on "the military and all security forces in #Myanmar to immediately stop violence against civilians."

EU foreign ministers are to meet Monday to discuss possible sanctions.

The U.N.'s special rapporteur for Myanmar, Tom Andrews, tweeted, "I am horrified at more loss of life, including a teenage boy in Mandalay, as the ruling junta escalates its brutality in Myanmar. From water cannons to rubber bullets to tear gas and now hardened troops firing point blank at peaceful protesters. This madness must end, now!"

In a statement released late Sunday, Myanmar's Foreign Ministry called the messages "flagrant interference" in its internal affairs.

"Despite facing the unlawful demonstrations, incitements of unrest and violence, the authorities concerned are exercising utmost restraint through minimum use of force to address the disturbances," it said in a statement.

But security forces have grown increasingly aggressive against the protesters, who have clashed with them since the military detained de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other high-ranking officials of the civilian government nearly three weeks ago.

The military declared a one-year state of emergency, citing widespread fraud in last November's general elections, won in a landslide by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

The military's claims were rejected by Myanmar's electoral commission.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have since filled the streets of Myanmar's biggest cities in defiance of a strict curfew and a ban on gatherings of more than four people, holding signs with pro-democracy slogans, many of them with pictures of Suu Kyi. They have raised a three-finger salute during marches, a sign of resistance against tyranny as depicted in the popular "Hunger Games" movies.

In addition to protests, government employees and civil servants are on strike, resulting in disruptions to train services throughout the country. The military has ordered civil servants back to work and threatened action against them. A growing number of workers from other sectors, including medical personnel, have walked off their jobs in recent days.

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who led the coup, promised last week in a nationally televised speech that new elections would be held to bring what he called a "true and disciplined democracy," but he did not specify when they would take place.