N. Korea faces serious food insecurity with children taking brunt: UN report
People gather in front of the large statues of former North Korean leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il at Mansudae Hill, Pyongyang, Feb. 6. A recent report from the United Nations shows that many North Korean children suffer from food shortages. Yonhap
More than four out of 10 North Koreans are facing food insecurity with a third of its children unable to get the minimum daily intake of food, a United Nations report showed Wednesday, indicating severe food shortages aggravated by years of natural disasters.
According to the report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), about 10.9 million people in North Korea are deemed "food insecure," which accounts for some 43 percent of the North's total population.
In particular, one out of three children aged 6-23 months do not receive "the minimum acceptable diet" while one out five are facing "chronic malnutrition."
The severe food insecurity was attributed to natural disasters in recent years, which have wrought havoc on the country's farming sector.
"The country is critically dependent on agriculture for its food security, which has been severely affected over the past six years by natural disasters, such as floods and drought, which erode farmers' coping capacities," the report said. "Even relatively small-scale events can have serious impacts on food production."
The report said that the organization will need some US$10 million this year to provide humanitarian assistance to about 513,000 North Koreans believed to be in need of help.
It said that the North's domestic food production does not meet the needs of its people due to shortages of arable land, lack of access to modern farming equipment and fertilizers, saying that the chances are high that things could get worse going forward.
It underlined the need for North Korea to enhance its capacity to cope with climate change by building early warning systems and improving its disaster response capability.
Earlier this week, the chairman of the Russian Senate's foreign affairs committee, Konstantin Kosachev, said that North Korea asked for 50,000 tons of wheat as humanitarian assistance and Moscow is considering the request.
Humanitarian assistance to North Korea has been constrained by sanctions, which the U.S. wants to keep in place until progress is made in its denuclearization talks with North Korea.
In 2017, South Korea announced a plan to provide $8 million worth of assistance to North Korea through global agencies but the plan has not yet been carried out. (Yonhap)