The scenes convinced him that much of the aid donated by the outside world wasn't saving the lives it was intended to save. Vollertsen, who admits that his evidence is anecdotal, says he has seen food and medical equipment supplied by his agency locked inside a warehouse when it should already have been distributed. On that occasion he kicked down the door. He accuses other aid organizations of not being as determined as they should be to hold Pyongyang to account for the aid it receives. Vollertsen was forced by authorities to leave North Korea on December 30 and took a ferry from China to South Korea.
Nobody criticizes or tries to investigate where the food has gone.
Pyongyang is fooling the world. Aid groups must insist on human rights and better monitoring. If they behave like slaves nothing will change. He says United Nations agencies, in particular the World Food Programme, are too worried about getting expelled to risk annoying their hosts. But if they did try standing up to the authorities, he believes they would get a more positive response than they might expect.