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Seoul, South Korea
The United Nations on Monday said it was very concerned about acute food crisis in North Korea and the country was in an urgent need of livelihoods assistance.
David Beasley, the head of the UN World Food Programme, appealed for donations to solve the crisis and vowed that he would ensure that the aid reaches the neediest people there.
Beasley was in Seoul to meet South Korean Minister of Unification Kim Yeon-Chul and discuss the findings of a recent joint report by WFP and Food and Agriculture Organization on the critical hunger situation in North Korea, the Ministry said in a statement.
The report stressed that some 10 million North Koreans (40 per cent of its population) face an imminent shortage of food, especially in the summer months preceding the next big harvest, due to the worst agricultural yield in a decade.
âWe are very concerned about the situation there, and we are hopeful that we can come up with some solutions," Beasley told reporters after he met with the South Korean minister.
"Whatever we do, we will assure the donors that the food or any assistance will meet their objectives. We'll have monitoring systems in place," he added in statements reported by Yonhap news agency.
Beasley was referring to cases where food aid shipments sent in the past to North Korea were allegedly redirected to the army and the regime elites instead of reaching those who needed it the most.
The meeting comes after the South Korean government last week expressed its intention to provide food aid to its northern neighbour, with whom it remains technically at war since 1950.
According to the ministry, Beasley and Kim both agreed on the need to separate humanitarian and political issues in reference to the recent missile launches by North Korea amid a stagnancy in denuclearization talks.
Kim Yeon-Chul said he would analyze the possibility of activating nutritional support donation programs especially for children and pregnant women, adds the text.
The South Korean minister is expected to meet with representatives of civic and religious groups Tuesday to study an aid package.
In 2017, the South Korean government approved an aid package for the North valued at $8 million to be channelled through international agencies, although the package is yet to be sent due to the lack of progress in denuclearization dialogue.
The last time Seoul sent food assistance (5,000 tonnes of rice) to North Korea was in 2010.