CANNIBALISM

Residents of remote Chinese villages on the border with North Korea seemed oddly reluctant to bury their dead. When asked to explain why this was so, many villagers replied that evil spirits came in the night and removed the bodies of their loved ones and took them away to Hell. One journalist investigating this story decided that this explanation seemed less than plausible - not least because the bodies were removed from above rather than below -and set out to investigate what was happening. Having arranged for an empty coffin to be buried with much show and ceremony, he took up a hidden position and waited to see what happened. He did not have to wait long, as a small group of North Koreans crossed over the border from their country, which was in the grip of famine, and dug up what they thought was a fresh body. Apparently, the food situation had become so desperate that they had resorted to cannibalism in order to feed their families.

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