Then the DPRK was plagued by beasts. First came “the march of the ants.” Starving people traveled in long lines to the mountainsides to look for wild grass or acorns to eat, looking like ants scurrying from their hills. Then there were the “penguins,” vagabonds who wandered the countryside clad in dark, filthy rags on their backs. Yet neither of these “beasts” horrified me as much as the kotchebi, the “little sparrows.” Many children became orphaned during the Arduous March, or were simply abandoned by families who could no longer take care of them. I issued orders to supply our orphanages
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