SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea on Thursday offered to send humanitarian aid to North Korea after the isolated North reported extensive damage from floods in towns along its western border with China.
North Korea did not immediately respond. If the North accepts the offer, it could lead to the first official contact between the two Koreas in several years. After the collapse of direct diplomacy between its leader, Kim Jong Un, and then-U.S. President Donald Trump, North Korea in 2020 cut off all official channels of dialogue with the South.
In recent days, North Korea has reported severe floods near the estuary where the Yalu River empties into the Yellow Sea after flowing along the North Korea-China border. State media reported that roads, railways and more than 4,100 homes were submerged, along with large swaths of farmland. Kim visited the area, ordering his military to use helicopters to evacuate thousands of villagers isolated by the flooding.
“We offer sincere condolences for North Koreans who have suffered severe damage from torrential rains,” the South Korean government said in a statement Thursday. “We express our willingness to quickly provide urgently needed items for the victims out of humanitarianism and compatriotic love for the North Korean people.”
The statement added that South Korea was ready for dialogue through the two Korean Red Cross societies to determine the size and other details of humanitarian aid. South Korean officials said that they were willing to provide food and medicine.
The offer was an unusual overture of reconciliation on the divided Korean Peninsula. As recently as a week ago, the two countries were accusing each other of “crude and dirty” provocations, as North Korea sent balloons loaded with trash across the inter-Korean border, and the South retaliated by blaring K-pop and anti-North Korea propaganda into the North through loudspeakers.
North and South Korea had a rare rapprochement when their leaders met at a border summit in 2018. But the mood soured after meetings between Kim and Trump ended in 2019 without agreement on how to roll back North Korea’s nuclear weapons program or on when to ease sanctions imposed on the North. North Korea has since stepped up its missile tests, in addition to cutting off contact with the South.
The two Koreas have occasionally used humanitarian projects, such as the temporary reunions of families separated by the Korean War, which started in 1950, to restore dialogue and ease tensions.
North Korea was forced to accept foreign aid when it lost millions of people to a famine in the 1990s. It has since suffered chronic food shortages, often blamed on a lack of fuel and fertilizers and on natural disasters like floods and droughts.
In 2020, North Korea suffered extensive flood damage, but Kim rejected offers of international aid for fear that outside help might bring in the coronavirus. North Korea did not respond when South Korea offered dialogue in 2022 to discuss cooperation in dealing with the pandemic.
In the past week, North Korean state media reported a “grave crisis” and unspecified human casualties caused by floods. Photographs released through state media showed entire villages submerged, with only roofs visible. Kim replaced the party chiefs of two border provinces and his minister of public security, blaming them for a “chronic and indifferent attitude toward the disaster prevention work.”
When Kim took power after the death of his father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, in 2011, he promised that his long-suffering people would “never have to tighten their belts again.” But he has not managed to end the food shortages.
The latest floods hit North Korea as Kim Jong Un’s government has been working to reinvigorate the personality cult surrounding him. Just last month, North Korea reported a “fairly good” harvest and required officials to wear chest pins bearing Kim’s image.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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