Sunday, November 17, 2002
Food crisis worsens in N Korea as fuel shipments suspended
Press Trust of India Beijing, November 17
Lack of international aid to famine-stricken North Korea is forcing the UN World Food Programme (WFP) to cut back food to up to three million starving people, a UN official said on Sunday.
The serious food shortage was developing as the United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union decided Friday to suspend badly needed fuel oil shipments to the Stalinist nation as punishment for its alleged nuclear weapons programme.
"Because of falling food supplies, we've been forced to cut back on the number of our aid recipients since September," Rick Corsino, director of the WFP in Pyongyang, told AFP by telephone.
"We are providing aid to some three million less people than we used to," he said.
At the height of its food aid programme in North Korea, the WFP was supplying food to some 6.4 million needy, mainly children, pregnant women and elderly people, Corsino said.
Despite a normal fall harvest, North Korea would still be about 1.1 million tonnes short of the amount of food it needs to feed some 21 million people, he said.
The WFP was hoping for at least 100,000 tonnes of food aid for the first quarter of next year in order to maintain its present aid levels and needed some 500,000 tonnes for the entire year.
North Korea was also facing another "serious" situation, he said, as the end to fuel oil supplies could have an almost "immediate" impact on some 18 factories that the WFP works with to blend and fortify its food supplies.
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