North Korean Famine - Estimated Deaths

Estimated Deaths

An exact statistical number of deaths during the acute phase of the crisis, from 1994 to 1998, will probably never be fully determined. Independent analysis estimates between 800,000 and 1.5 million people died due to starvation, disease, or sickness caused by lack of food.

In 1998, US Congressional staffers who visited the country reported that: "Therefore, we gave a range of estimates, from 300,000 to 800,000 dying per year, peaking in 1997. That would put the total dead from the North Korean food shortage at between 900,000 to 2.4 million between 1995 and 1998." Higher estimates range from 2-3 million.

A survey by North Korea's Public Security Ministry suggests that 2.5 to 3 million people died from 1995 to March 1998, although the numbers may have been inflated to secure additional food aid. Estimates based on the most recent North Korean census suggest that 240,000 to 420,000 people died during the famine and that there were 600,000 to 850,000 unnatural deaths from 1993 to 2008.

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