TAIZÉ

North Korea | Humanitarian aid

 

In 2016, the Community invited two doctors from the Hospital of the Red Cross of North Korea to do a refresher course in France. These doctors spent three months in Paris and the costs of their stay were borne entirely by Operation Hope. Between 2007 and 2011, six other doctors had also done a one-year internship in France.

The first humanitarian deliveries to this country were made in 1998 and 1999. More than one thousand tons of maize flour were sent for the population who were suffering after several years of drought and flooding.

Since then, every year it has been possible to make a gesture of solidarity. Milk and feeding bottles for newborn babies, medical equipment and basic medication, were collected during the European meeting in Berlin at the end of 2011. Dozens of packs of medication, hundreds of stethoscopes, thermometers, bandages, gauze, syringes and different medical supplies as well as several large boxes of surgical devices and two sterilisers were sent. Operation Hope added two new oxygen concentrators. This support continued the following years with the sending of medical devices and medication. The North Korean Red Cross takes care of the distribution to hospitals and rural clinics.

A brother of the Community, originally from South Korea, has visited North Korea several times. He has sometimes accompanied the delivery of foodstuffs.