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North Korea expels country director of German aid group
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North Korea has expelled the country director of one of the few foreign aid groups to operate in its territory.
This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason.
Welthungerhilfe, whose name translates as World Hunger Aid, is one of Germany’s largest non-governmental aid organisations and has been working in North Korea since 1997, spending more than €60m on projects designed to improve food, sanitation and water supply.
It said North Korea had asked its country director Regina Feindt to leave the country in late February, without warning or saying why.
Feindt’s colleague Karl Fall, who had worked in the country for 12 years, left of his own volition the next month.
“Welthungerhilfe does not see anything in Mrs Feindt’s behaviour that would have justified an expulsion,” the aid group said.
It said Feindt left North Korea on 26 February and Fall left on 19 March. Feindt and Fall were not available to comment, Welthungerhilfe said.
The abrupt departures came as a surprise to members of the small foreign community in Pyongyang, according to a regular visitor to the North Korean capital who wished to remain anonymous, citing the sensitive nature of working there.
Welthungerhilfe would not comment on the events leading up to Feindt’s deportation. “We don’t know why this has happened,” said spokeswoman Simone Pott.
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The NGO still has a skeleton presence in North Korea. It said its activities to improve water and sewage systems in cities were unaffected.
“At the moment we are in discussions with the North Korean authorities to secure a basis for continuing our development work in the country for the benefit of the people of North Korea,” the group said.
A devastating famine in the 1990s left hundreds of thousands of North Koreans dead or dying from starvation. The food situation has improved since, but Pyongyang still relies on support from foreign aid organisations.
