UN, `Six Million North Korean in Dire Situation`

The United Nations (UN) warned that more than six million North Korean face serious shortages of food, medicine, and drinkable water, and the situation would become seriously deteriorated within several weeks if there were little international assistance.

Executive director of the UN World Food Program (WFP) James Morris warned in a joint communiqué with the UNICEF on April 30 and disclosed, `Coming into this year, the international assistance toward North Korea is so sluggish that we have no other way but to stop distributing foods to 350 thousand older persons and 675 thousand middle school students in May to focus instead on the most vulnerable groups.`

Executive director Morris explained, `We can continue distributing foods to orphans, children, and the pregnant till the third quarter of this year through the measure.`

The communiqué quoted the government`s statistics saying that 45 percent of North Korean children under the age of five suffer from malnutrition, and four million school age children have not been fed well and receive little education.

UN organizations started to campaign jointly for contribution fund of 258 million dollars to assist North Korean beginning last November, but the actual collected amount is known to be 23.5 million dollars so far, less than 10 percent of the target.

konihong@donga.com