More food donations needed for North Korea

Nearly 4 million North Koreans will be deprived of UN food rations by February if foreign donors do not give more aid to the communist state, the head of the UN World Food Programme says.

The comments by WFP executive director James Morris followed an emergency appeal last week for US$171 million-worth of rations to feed 6.5 million North Koreans, mostly women and children, plagued by years of hunger compounded by price reforms.

The WFP says it needs the US$171 million to offset a drop in contributions, which in 2003 has already forced the WFP to cut off rations to several million North Koreans fed by the agency since the mid-1990s.