Rats the only source of meat

Chol Hwan Kang, in his memoir "Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag" recollects:

"As prisoners eat rats in the camp, rats were almost depleted and became harder to find. The surviving rats are wary.

“Rat is the only source of meat for prisoners for 10 or 20 years.

“Rat tastes strange and somehow unpleasant at first. The revolting taste, however, soon disappears.

“The children never miss the opportunity to catch rats, as they watch so many other prisoners dying of undernourishment.”