North Korea Hunger Crisis
Damir Sagolj / Reuters
“I crossed into North Korea for the first time in my life to witness
what should have been a distant past…”
In October 2011, Bangkok based Reuters photographer Damir Sagolj travelled with Alertnet – the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s humanitarian news service – and Medecins Sans Frontieres on a government requested and tightly controlled trip to North Korea. After being on stand by for the 6 months prior, the team were granted a week-long trip into the South Hwanghae region, gaining access to collective farms, orphanages, hospitals, rural clinics, schools and nurseries rarely seen by the world’s media, if ever.
The country’s dysfunctional food-distribution system, rising global commodities prices and sanctions imposed over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs had contributed to what appeared to be a hunger crisis in the North, even before devastating summer floods and typhoons compounded the emergency.
The picture the regime presented was largely one of chronic hunger, dire healthcare, limited access to clean water and a collapsing food-rationing system, all under a command economy that has been in crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union 20 years ago threw North Korea into isolation. The regime’s motive in granting the access appeared to be to amplify its food-aid appeals. In one orphanage in Haeju, 28 children huddled together on the floor of a small clinic, singing “We have nothing to envy” — an anthem to North Korea’s longstanding policy of juche, or complete self-reliance, that has made this one of the most closed societies on earth.
Damir Sagolj
Damir Sagolj was born on May 3rd 1971 in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia at the time, now Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1995 he started working with Sipa, the Paris based press agency. In 1997 he joined Reuters as chief photographer for Bosnia.
His first international assignment for the agency was to cover the historical events unfolding in his own country and the wider Balkans. When conflict in the region later eased, he travelled to the Middle East including Iran, Lebanon and Israel.
Following his coverage of the cataclysmic events of 9/11 Sagolj travelled to Afghanistan and Iraq. His images of the coalition troop’s invasion of Iraq were, among other awards, finalist for a Pulitzer.
As well as covering conflict, Sagolj works on a diverse range of assignments for Reuters including social issues, politics, world and religious leaders, major sporting events including the Olympics, as well as feature stories.
His photographs have been published in leading international magazines and newspapers including Time, Newsweek, Spiegel, Stern, New York Times, Life, Washington Post and Le Monde.
He is the recipient of numerous international awards for photojournalism and multimedia including prizes from World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, Best of Photojournalism (NPPA) and Society of Publishers in Asia. He has had numerous exhibitions including a solo show at Visa pour l’image in Perpignan in 2003.
Most recently Sagolj has covered the Pakistan and Thailand floods, the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, hunger in North Korea, Japan’s tsunami and recent historical change in Myanmar. He is currently based in Bangkok as Reuters chief photographer for Thailand and South-East Asia and is working on his MA thesis at the London College of Communications.
North Korea Hunger Crisis – Damir Sagolj
From september 1st to september 21st
Couvent des Minimes
Rue François Rabelais
66000 Perpignan – France
