North Korean leader Kim Jong Un emphasized that recovery efforts will be “based on self-reliance” despite offers of foreign aid, and state media reported on Saturday that the country will relocate more than 15,000 flood victims to the capital.
Last week, Pyongyang announced that a record-breaking amount of rain fell in late July, flooding homes and submerging large areas of farmland in its northern areas close to China, killing an unknown number of people.
According to the official Korean Central News Agency, Kim stated during a visit to the flood-ravaged city of Uiju on Friday that the administration intended to house about 15,400 flood victims from the northern area in facilities in the capital until their ruined homes are repaired.
The plan, which will include food and medical assistance as well as educational support for the thousands of students being moved, will be “a top priority of the state,” Kim said.
International offers of support have poured in since news of the flooding disaster first emerged, including from South Korea, which offered humanitarian aid via the Korean Red Cross despite the two countries’ strained relations.
Pyongyang has said that Moscow has made a similar offer, while Seoul’s Yonhap news agency has said that China and the UN Children’s Fund have indicated that they are eager to assist.
However, as reported by KCNA on Friday, Kim declared that the nation’s rehabilitation efforts would be “thoroughly based on self-reliance”.
Nevertheless, the report stated that he conveyed his gratitude to “many foreign countries and international organizations for their offer of humanitarian support.”
South Korean media have reported that the number of dead and missing in the North could be as high as 1,500, but Kim on Friday dismissed the reports as a “grave provocation” and “an insult to the flood-stricken people who are all safe and well.”
The remote and impoverished nation is particularly prone to natural disasters because of its inadequate infrastructure and deforestation, which makes it more susceptible to flooding.
With the North recently declaring the deployment of 250 ballistic missile launchers to its southern border, relations between the two Koreas are at an all-time low.
