UN: North Korea's food crisis deepens, daily rations halved

Oct 26, 2011, 19:16 GMT

New York - Food insecurity in North Korea will remain in the 'foreseeable future' after daily rations provided by the government dropped by half, the UN top relief emergency coordinator said Wednesday.

An estimated 6 million of the country's 24 million people are in severe need of food aid, said Valerie Amos, who visited North Korea for the first time last week and was able to travel to South Hamgyong and Kangwon provinces to see work by international humanitarian agencies.

'The people and the country are coping despite really tough conditions,' Amos said back in New York.

'The DPRK remains a highly food insecure country, with a population made increasingly vulnerable by continued reliance upon unreliable food supplies,' she said. The country's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The daily ration provided by the government fell from 400 grams of food per person per day in March to 200 grams in July and has remained unchanged, further deepening the hardship of the ordinary people, she said.

The country suffers a chronic annual food gap of 1 million tons out of a total requirement of 5.3 million tons. Malnutrition is rampant and as a result children under the age of five suffer stunting and both children and adults are short and thin.