Millions of North Koreans are going hungry as the country faces one of its biggest food shortages in 10 years, a United Nations official has said.
Anthony Banbury, the Asian regional director of the World Food Programme, said officials told him that there was a million-tonne shortage due to a poor harvest last year and a 75 per cent drop in aid.
North Koreans have relied on foreign food donations since the economy was devastated by the loss of subsidies and the collapse of its state-run farm system in the mid-1990s due to mismanagement.
An estimated two million people are thought to have died in the ensuing famine.
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"If donors do not respond to the request, millions of people are going to go hungry"
Anthony Banbury, World Food Programme |
"If donors do not respond to the request, millions of people are going to go hungry," Banbury said on Wednesday after returning from a six-day trip to North Korea.
North Korea had restricted the activities of aid agencies and pressured them to reduce foreign staff members in the country.
The World Food Programme suspended aid in 2005 after Pyongyang, claiming adequate supplies, asked to shift the focus to economic development.
The agency had argued that the abrupt switch would leave millions hungry.
The programme was restarted in May last year after North Korea gave permission for food shipments to be channelled to 1.9 million citizens, a sharp drop from the 6.5 million it was feeding in previous years.
South Korea has resumed shipments of fertiliser and food aid to the North, sending 300,000 tonnes of fertiliser on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, it shipped a flood-aid package that includes food and concrete.
The aid shipments resumed after Pyongyang agreed to shut down its main nuclear reactor by the 60-day deadline set during six-nation talks last month.