Famine and Poverty within North Korea
The World Food Programme estimates that 6 million of North Korea's 25 million people are in need of food aid and one-third of children are chronically malnourished or stunted. Analysis of escapees from North Korea shows that those born after the Korean War in the late 1950s were on average about 2 inches shorter than South Koreans. Most North Koreans subsist on corn and kimchi, a pickled cabbage.
Approximately, 2 million people died as a result of famine in the 1990s caused by the government's farming policies and flooding, according to the United Nations. Asia Press reported that a recent return of famine in the farming provinces of North and South Hwanghae has forced some to resort to cannibalism.