ROK Drop

By on February 16th, 2009 at 7:49 am

Many North Korean Refugees Suffer from Illness

This bit of news I’m sure shouldn’t be surprising to anyone:

The most common ailments among North Korean refugees are dental disease followed by tuberculosis, according to Hanawon, the government-run institution for North Korean refugees.

Hanawon director Ko Kyung-bin told AFP half of the organization’s budget is spent on dental work. He said they need prosthetic teeth because they have no molars due to malnutrition. Some 10 percent of Hanawon inmates also suffer from infectious diseases including tuberculosis, he added.

Some 20 percent of inmates also need psychological treatment after leaving the institution, Hanawon said. Many also still owe money to brokers who arranged their defection to the South and experience discrimination.  [Chosun Ilbo]

Just think, there is a nation of 24 million of people just like this about 35 miles from Seoul.  It will only get worse as time goes on.

Tags: ,
- 398 views

 

RSS feed for comments on this post | TrackBack URI

By submitting a comment here you grant this site a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution.

Bad Behavior has blocked 15834 access attempts in the last 7 days.