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Aid Groups Meet on Human Rights, Hunger in North Korea VOA News 11 Feb 2002 10:23 UTC 
Defectors from North Korea and human-rights activists are urging the global community to pay more attention to human rights in the Stalinist country.
Participants in the International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees issued the call at the end of a two-day meeting (Sunday) in Tokyo. The conference brought together 15 non-governmental organizations from eight countries.
Aid agencies say much of the food and other assistance donated to North Korea does not reach ordinary people, but is set aside for the country's political and military leadership.
The United Nations World Food Program and other aid groups estimate that one-million to two-million North Koreans, out of a population of 24-million, have died of starvation and hunger-related illnesses since the mid-1990s.
A resolution passed at the meeting also urged Beijing to allow aid groups to assist North Korean defectors. Aid-agency officials estimate that more than 100-thousand North Korean refugees are living illegally in China, in constant fear of arrest and deportation.
Human-rights advocates asked for the creation of refugee camps along the Chinese-North Korean border, to shelter defectors and eventually resettle them in third countries.
The World Food Program says it is running short of funds, in addition to the other difficulties it faces in getting food to hungry North Koreans.
The agency has launched an appeal to world governments, saying it has only about 10 percent of the $216 million it needs to provide food aid to North Korea this year.
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