Efforts to feed starving North Koreans are being hit by dwindling donations, the World Food Programme (WFP) said yesterday, as defectors reported a deadly clash between troops and workers trying to loot a food train.
Months of shortfalls in donations mean the WFP can carry out only 15 percent of its planned food aid operation, Lena Savelli, a spokeswoman for the UN body, said in an online report.
The agency had so far received contributions of US$22.7 million, just 4.5 percent of the US$504 million needed for its emergency operations in North Korea this year, she said.
Two million people — only one-third of the 6.2 million originally targeted — were receiving food aid, she said, and even they were receiving only incomplete rations of fortified foods.
Savelli voiced concern over the “very negative impact” on the people.
“The country is soon to enter the critical ‘lean season’ when food stocks from last year’s harvest run low. In certain parts of North Korea, particularly in the northeast, high levels of malnutrition are anticipated,” she said.
Donations for the North’s people have dwindled amid international irritation over the regime’s missile and nuclear programs. The North has also rejected some aid because of political tensions.
Lynn Pascoe, a UN undersecretary general, visited some of the world body’s humanitarian projects in the North last month.
The initiatives were about one-quarter of what they should be amid “donor fatigue,” he said at the time.
The North suffered famine in the 1990s which killed hundreds of thousands. It has relied on international aid since then to help feed its 24 million people.
NK Intellectuals Solidarity, a Seoul-based North Korean defector group, said yesterday that about 30 hungry railway workers clashed with police and troops after trying to loot a food train.
It said worker Cho Sung-koo was shot dead by armed guards before troops moved in to restore order.
The unrest occurred on Feb. 16, the North’s biggest public holiday marking leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday, at Komusan station in North Hamkyong Province, the group said.
“The railway workers turned extremely violent after one of them was shot dead at the scene, wielding hoes and pouncing on the guards,” group spokesman Lee Se-yeul said, citing contacts in the North.
“Police had to move in to calm down the unrest, which was brought under control only after military troops were brought in,” Lee said.
He said all those involved, including a guard responsible for the killing, were arrested and may face harsh punishment.
The persistent food crisis has worsened since a bungled currency revaluation on Nov. 30, reports say.
The move was intended to rein in a nascent free-market economy, but analysts said it disrupted the distribution system, intensifying food shortages and fuelling inflation amid public anger.
The Daily NK online newspaper said the price of rice in the border city of Sinuiju had soared from 25 won per kilogram in late December to 1,000 won on Wednesday — four times the state-set official price.
Officials in Seoul and aid groups say already severe food shortages are expected to worsen this year after last year’s poor grain harvest.
A state-run research institute says the North is expected to face a grain shortfall of 1.29 million tonnes this year, equivalent to almost four months’ food supply.
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