to the north is a vast 1,300km border with china. through closing its borders, north korea not only stopped people from leaving and entering the country, but it cut off trade. so, they stopped freight trains from even crossing the border from china with vital supplies of food and medicine. i work on construction projects. often, we have to work late into the night, and i sleep at the site. this person, who we re calling chan ho, lives near the chinese border with his family. i wouldn t be able to survive if my wife didn t work at the market. food supplies are so low, people have started dying. it s been so long since we received government rations.
hearing from people inside this isolated country is extremely rare. but with fears the country is on the brink of a famine, we ve been secretly communicating with people who live there. we re using actors and animations to illustrate their words, and have changed their names to protect them. in our village, five people have starved to death. chan ho is a construction worker living near the chinese boarder. in one family, the wife was too ill to work, so the two children were surviving by begging. in the end, all three of them died. at first, i was afraid of dying from covid, but then i began to worry about starving to death. at the start of the pandemic, north korea completely sealed its borders. these pictures released by the regime are all the world s been able to see.
hearing from people inside this isolated country is extremely rare. but with fears the country is on the brink of a famine, we ve been secretly communicating with people who live there. we re using actors and animations to illustrate their words, and have changed their names to protect them. in our village, five people have starved to death. chan ho is a construction worker living near the chinese boarder. in one family, the wife was too ill to work, so the two children were surviving by begging. in the end, all three of them died. at first, i was afraid of dying from covid, but then i began to worry about starving to death. at the start of the pandemic, north korea completely sealed its borders. these pictures released by the regime are all