Severe North Korean Food Shortage

BEIJING - Feb 9/04 - SNS -- World Food Program (WFP) representatives say food grain stocks are nearly exhausted in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and urgent intervention by the international community is needed to help feed 6.5 million of the country's hungriest people until food aid supplies in the pipeline start arriving.

"We are scraping the bottom of the barrel," Masood Hyder, WFP Representative for the DPRK, said in Beijing. "Over four million core beneficiaries - the most vulnerable children, women and elderly people - are now deprived of very vital rations. It's the middle of the harsh Korean winter and they need more food, not less."

Donors have recently pledged contributions amounting to some 77,000 metric tons (MT). However, little of this food will arrive before April meaning that for the next two months, almost four million people will be deprived of cereals, which constitute a large share of the basic 'survival' ration. Only 75,000 child-bearing women and 8,000 children in orphanages and hospitals may receive WFP cereal distributions in February and March.

"Many of those we cannot help are only consuming two-thirds of the calories they need," Hyder said. "Unless they get help very soon, the damage could be irreparable."

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