N Korea Food Situation 'Critical':WFP

(RTTNews) - The United Nations food agency has warned that millions of hungry North Korean women and children are facing a critical shortage of food, as donations to the isolated state have dried up amid the country's nuclear stand-off, say media reports.

In the backdrop of tightening U.N. Security Council sanctions on it, and the North Korean government itself stepping up restrictions on aid groups, the World Food Program (WFP | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) says it has received just 15 per cent of the $504m it needs. Without that aid, it says, 6.2 million North Koreans are at risk.

Torben Due, WFP's country representative in North Korea, said contributions for that country dried up after Pyongyang carried out a nuclear test in May. "We have not really received any contributions after the nuclear test was carried out," he said.

As a result, the WFP has drastically curtailed food distribution to 4,500 tonnes per month, down from a planned 50,000 tonnes.

"It is a very serious problem for the people in (North Korea) as they do not have enough to eat," Due told reporters Wednesday in Beijing.

He said donors were responding to the political situation in North Korea but being a humanitarian organization, WFP would not engage in the political brinkmanship, but would look at the needs of the people.

Compounding the difficulties, Due said, the North Korean government also ordered the WFP to reduce its operations, and banned employing Korean-speaking staff. From last month, the agency was being allowed to operate in only 57 counties in the country, rather than the previous 131.

He said the WFP, which launched an emergency operation in North Korea late last year amid a deteriorating food outlook, had to scale down its goal of reaching 6.2 million of the hungry, and was now aiming at just 2.27 million.

The WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) last year estimated that overall, 8.7 million North Koreans--more than a third of the country's 24 million persons--depended on regular food aid.

"For adults, it doesn't mean a lot if you live for a few months on a diet of cereals and vegetables, but for children, it is critical," he said.

"We see an increase in the number of children being admitted to hospitals with severe malnutrition," he said.

Due said that decades of shortages and international isolation had taken their toll on North Koreans. A situation arose where much of the population was undernourished up to 20 years, he added.

In some parts of North Korea, some women weighed just 45 kg when they gave birth, he added, citing a medical survey. The children that survived these conditions would be born with "compromised immune systems… and that will contribute to their stunting," he said, adding: "It is a problem which goes from one generation to the next."

The WFP warning came during a lean growing season, with food shortages in cash-strapped North Korea worsening ahead of the November harvest.

The South Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance and the state-run Korea Development Institute said the North was expected to suffer from a food shortage of up to 840,000 tons this year with the total grain production expected to be around 4.29 million tons this year. This would fall short of the minimum 5.13 million tons needed to feed its 20-plus million population.

The North has relied on overseas aid to feed millions of its citizens ever since it suffered a severe famine in the 1990s that killed hundreds of thousands of them, blamed on poor weather as well as inefficient control over the economy.

U.S 'Helpless'

The United States said Wednesday it was "very concerned" about the severe food crisis in North Korea but could not send the needed food aid without assurances from the totalitarian government that the materials would reach the needy.

"We currently have no plans to provide additional food aid to North Korea and any additional food would have to have assurances that it would be appropriately used," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

Expressing concern about the well-being of the North Korean people, he added that adequate program-management should be in place. Monitoring and access provisions were absent now.

He recalled that in March, North Korea expelled non-governmental organization (NGO | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) monitors, in line with its decision to reject 330,000 tons of U.S. food aid. "At that time, we had about 22,000 metric tonnes in storage there. We've learned that the DPRK (North Korea) has distributed this food," Kelly said.

However, Due said it appeared unlikely that WFP aid was being diverted to North Korea's powerful military, saying the agency had seen no evidence of that, and that the aid was largely bland cereal meant for children.

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