North Korea is heading into another cold winter but there are big concerns for vulnerable citizens who may fall victim to starvation

According to reports by the BBC, the warnings are coming from both inside and out of North Korea – with defectors in the South stating that families in the North are already going hungry.

Concern has been building for some months for the ‘lower class’ living in North Korea, who already live in poverty, as well as a growing shortage of food within the nation.

It’s become increasingly difficult to get information out of North Korea over the course of the COVID pandemic.

The country’s border has been closed since January 2020 to prevent the spread of coronavirus from China – where the virus was believed to have originated from.

Reports claim that getting messages out of the country to family and friends who live in South Korea comes at a very big risk.

North Korea has imposed tough rules on communication. Anyone that is caught with a mobile phone faces the extreme risk of being thrown into a labour camp as punishment.

But – even though those risks are high – some continue to send letter and even voice mails and text messages to their relatives and to news publications in Seoul, South Korea.

Publications in the South then “build a picture” of what is going on in the North- meaning, trying to understand how big the starvation crisis really is

North Korea has always struggled with food shortages, but the pandemic has made a bad situation worse.

The country’s leader, Kim Jong-un has compared the current situation to the country’s worst disaster in the 1990’s, known as the “Arduous March” – a time where hundreds of thousands of people died of starvation.

Last week, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service stated to a closed-door parliamentary hearing that Mr Kim said he felt he was “walking on thin ice due to the economic situation”, according to lawmakers at the briefing.

This growing concern has been amplified by state media, which has highlighted measures being taken to prevent crop damage and released propaganda posters emphasising efforts to work on food production.