UN: North Korea facing worst famine in a decade

PARTS of North Korea are experiencing their worst levels of hunger in nearly a decade, the UN World Food Programme said yesterday as it called on donors to provide urgent assistance over the next few months.

Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the WFP’s country director for North Korea, said a food security assessment conducted last month showed that parts of the country could fall into a humanitarian emergency ahead of the autumn harvest.

Millions of people are facing the worst hunger seen since the late 1990s, when famine killed an estimated one million people, de Margerie said. The crisis is especially severe in the north-east.

“What is critical for us right now is to be able to address the immediate needs, the needs of average Koreans between now and the end of the lean season,” he told reporters in Beijing. “This is the period when people are hurting.”

Flooding last year, higher oil and commodity prices and a decline in shipments of aid are all adding to the shortfalls, de Margerie said.

He called on international donors to contribute to the $20 million (€13m) needed to enable the WFP to expand its food distribution to reach 6.4 million of the country’s roughly 23 million people ahead of the autumn harvest.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said in late March it expected North Korea to have a shortfall of about 1.66 million tons in cereals for the year ending in October 2008, the largest deficit in about seven years.

De Margerie said the recent assessment found that more than half of North Korean households had cut the number of meals they eat each day from three to two and close to 75% had reduced their food intake.