N Korean food aid 'running out'

Millions of North Korean children are malnourished

Millions of hungry North Korean children and elderly people are facing a halt in food aid rations unless new aid is pledged immediately, the United Nations has warned.

A slump in donations means the UN is already starting to halt grain rations to nearly three million people, including underfed primary school children.

The WFP is giving priority to the most vulnerable

The cut-backs will take effect over the next two months, and another 1.5 million people could lose food aid early next year.

Such cutbacks would cause "suffering on a massive scale" said Rick Corsino, country director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

"We're continuing to try to feed the most vulnerable of the vulnerable for as long as we possibly can and these are the youngest children," he said.

"But by November, December we are essentially going to be exhausted."

The WFP feeds about one third of North Korea's 23 million people, but donations have fallen this year amid frustration over the Communist nation's continued diplomatic isolation.

Political moves

However, there have been signs in recent weeks that North Korea is making moves to open up.

2002 donations

US: 250,000 tons

S Korea: 100,000 tons

Japan: nil

The first visit by a US delegation in two years, led by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, is due in Pyongyang on 3 October.

And at the end of October, Japan and North Korea are due to resume talks on normalising diplomatic relations after a two-year freeze.

Japan gave more than 500,000 tons of food aid to North Korea last year, but has not given any aid this year.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said in March that Japan would not give aid to North Korea until it dealt with allegations that it kidnapped Japanese nationals.

Earlier this month North Korean leader Kim Jong-il admitted North Korean agents did abduct Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 80s to help train North Korean spies. The admission has cleared the way for further talks.

The US is a major aid donor to North Korea but has said more aid is conditional on reforms.

But even if more aid was to be pledged today, it would take at least two months for actual shipments of food to arrive, said Rick Corsino.

According to some Western estimates up to two million North Koreans have died of starvation and related diseases since 1996.