North
Korea’s nuclear test are spreading a “ghost disease” that is deforming
babies and sickening civilians exposed to radiation, defectors said in a
report published Sunday.
“So
many people died we began calling it 'ghost disease,’” Lee Jeong Hwa, a
defector who used to live by a nuclear testing site, told NBC News.
"We thought we were dying because we were poor and we ate badly. Now we know it was the radiation."
Lee
is one of 30 defectors from North Korea’s Kilju county who has been
tested by South Korea’s Ministry of Unification for radiation
contamination. Since fleeing the isolated empire in 2010, she said she
has suffered chronic pain as a result of living near North Korea’s
Punggye-ri nuclear testing site.
Another
defector from Kilju, Rhee Yeong Sil, said a neighbor of hers gave birth
to a deformed baby who didn’t have genitals. The North Korean
government often kills deformed babies, so the parents killed the child
themselves, Rhee said.
09_21_Kim Jong U
Don't miss: Donald Trump Is 'Begging For War,' North Korea Says As U.S. Prepares For Aerial Drill With South Korea
There
is little scientific consensus backing up defectors’ claims of nuclear
radiation contamination, especially since it is impossible for outsiders
to study the testing sites of the hermetic communist country. NBC noted
that Lee has tested negative for radiation, and that it’s unclear
whether contamination in others was necessarily caused by nuclear
testing.
But as Kim Jong Un has ramped up weapons tests this year, there have been reports
from South Korea about the nuclear tests destroying the local
environment and giving babies birth defects. The tests alone aren’t the
only things causing catastrophes. A nuclear test in September set off a
6.3 magnitude earthquake that reportedly led to nearby buildings
collapsing, including a school with more than 100 children in it, many of whom were feared dead. One month later, a collapse during construction at the Punggye-ri facility killed more than 200 people.
Kim
this year has been stepping up the nuclear tests started by his father,
Kim Jong Il, while trading threats with President Donald Trump about a
possible military conflict. North Korea last week ran its first weapons
test in two months, with a missile that defense experts said is the most
powerful it has ever tested, and is capable of reaching anywhere in the
mainland United States
No comments:
Post a Comment