UN warns over food shortages in N Korea

Millions of North Korean children are not getting the food, medicine or healthcare they need to develop physically or mentally, leaving many stunted and malnourished, the United Nations said.

Nearly a third of children under the age of five show signs of stunting, particularly in rural areas where food is scarce, and chronic diarrhoea due to a lack of clean water, sanitation, and electricity has become the leading cause of death among children, the agency said.

Hospitals are spotless but bare, few have running water or power, and drugs and medicine are in short supply, the agency said in a detailed update on the humanitarian situation in North Korea.

“I’ve seen babies... who should have been sitting up who were not sitting up, and can hardly hold a baby bottle,” said Jerome Sauvage, the UN’s resident co-ordinator for North Korea.

The UN report paints a horrific picture of deprivation in the countryside, not often seen by outsiders, who are usually not allowed to travel beyond the relatively prosperous Pyongyang, where cherubic children are hand-picked to attend government celebrations and a middle-class with a taste for good food have the means to eat out.

Sauvage’s report provides not only further evidence of North Korea’s inability to feed its people, but also bolsters critics who say the government should be spending on food security instead of building up its military, testing rockets, and pursuing a nuclear programme denounced by the UN, the US, and South Korea.

The United Nations called for $198m (€160m) in donations for 2012 — mostly to help feed the hungry.

The appeal comes at a delicate time for North Korea, which has sought to project an image of stability and unity during the transition to power of the new, young leader, Kim Jong-un.

Yet the government has begun to publicly acknowledge a severe shortage of food for the first time in years.

In late May, prime minister Choe Yong-rim urged farmers to do their part in alleviating the food shortage, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

Fears of another drought have also been raised by a reported shortfall of rain this spring, which is expected to lead to a reduced harvest in autumn.

North Korea does not produce enough food to feed its 24m people, and relies on limited purchases of food as well as outside donations to make up the shortfall. North Korea also suffered a famine in the mid- and late-1990s.

About 16m North Koreans — two-thirds of the country — depend on twice-a-month government rations, the UN said. And there are no signs the government will undertake the long-term structural reforms needed to spur economic growth, it said.

Picture: North Koreans work in a field on the outskirts of Pyongyang, North Korea. The United Nations has called for 8 million in donations for 2012 - mostly to help feed the hungry but also to invest in programs designed to prevent the chronic deprivation that has led to persistent malnutrition among North Korea's young