Mick Hartley

The Daily NK on life for many in this North Korean winter:

As North Korea faces a huge drop in temperatures down to 20 degrees Celsius below zero at times, many North Korean families in the northeast part of the country cannot heat their homes due to a shortage of firewood, Daily NK has learned. 

Speaking through the phone on condition of anonymity, a source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Dec. 19 that “many families in Hoeryong have been unable to prepare enough kindling to heat their homes lately.” He added that people live “hellish lives” with “not enough to eat, and now they can’t even put together enough kindling.”

North Koreans usually begin preparing kindling or charcoal briquettes in autumn to heat their homes in winter, but the source said most people have been unable to purchase enough due to the high price of firewood. 

“Even families that had a tough time during COVID-19 could prepare at least a cubic meter of firewood, but this year, they’ve been unable to put together even that much because the firewood price skyrocketed with the onset of winter,” the source said. “Because it’s too expensive to buy wood by the cubic meter, they buy it by it bundle-by-bundle to heat their homes, though this barely meets the need.”…

Many North Koreans barely make KPW 2,000-3,000 even if they work all day, which makes it impossible to buy both food and kindling with what they earn. 

As a result, many people cannot properly heat their homes in the bitter cold, so they wage war against the cold indoors by wearing thick layers. 

As the temperature plummets, a great number of North Koreans are also suffering from flu-like symptoms, including high fevers and coughs. The flu is especially rampant among young children, according to the source. 

“Children inevitably come down with colds because they have weakened immunity from malnutrition, and [their parents] can’t even heat their homes in the cold. Parents feel terrible because they can’t buy a single tablet of medicine, even when their kids come down with serious colds.”

At least they can warm themselves with the knowledge that the country, under the inspired leadership of Kim Jong-un, is a nuclear power that can now send rockets into space…