The Sad State of North Korea’s Starving Soldiers

North Korean soldiers attend a mass rally to celebrate North Korea's declaration on Nov. 29 that it had achieved full nuclear statehood, on Kim Il-Sung Square in Pyongyang on Dec. 1, 2017. North Korea maintains a large army, but soldiers are not being given enough food and morale has plummeted, say sources inside the country. KIM WON-JIN/AFP/Getty Images

Sources inside North Korea say the regime has ramped up ideological and military training recently, but have not supplied the food and supplies soldiers need, causing morale to plummet.

The story comes a few weeks after a North Korean soldier defected to South Korea by running across the demilitarized zone, getting shot five times in the process and revealing a stomach full of parasites, tuberculosis, and Hepatitis B.