Estimates based on the North Korean census suggest that 240,000 to 420,000 people died as a result of the 1990s famine and that there were 600,000 to 850,000 unnatural deaths in North Korea from 1993 to 2008.[154] Other estimates go as high as one million. The famine has been described as the result of the economic policies of the North Korean government[155] or as deliberate "terror-starvation".[156]