This year's first batch of private relief food aid was shipped across the border to flood-stricken North Korea on Friday with more South Korean private aid groups expected to send relief goods.
Twenty 25-ton trucks carrying 500 tons of flour left for the North at 10:00 a.m. through the border transit center in Paju, north of Seoul.
The relief goods from Christian charity group World Vision are the first cross-border food aid shipment following recent heavy floods in the impoverished country.
The bags of flour will be unloaded in Kaesong and distributed to kindergartens and elementary schools in the most heavily affected cities of Anju and Kaechon.
World Vision officials will "visit the (distribution) site and monitor the distribution process as we have agreed with the North," a World Vision official said.
The food assistance was arranged after World Vision officials traveled to Kaesong in mid-August to discuss the group's aid plan with the North.
It also occurred one day after South Korean Buddhist charity group JTS loaded another 500 tons of flour on a cargo ship that set sail for the North via the Chinese port city of Dandong.
The North's acceptance of the food aid from the private South Korean groups came despite the communist country's refusal last week to accept flour, instant noodles and medicine from the South Korean government.
Since President Lee Myung-bak took office in 2008 with a hard-line policy toward the North, the North has refused to communicate with the South.
Government officials say the North's acceptance of private-sector assistance indicates either a dire food situation in the North or a quest for a thaw in its restrained relations with the South.(Yonhap)