UN says more than food needed to solve North Korea crisis

A senior official of the United Nations aid programme in North Korea ,Douglas Coutts, has said that food supplies alone are not enough to resolve the crisis there.

Mr Coutts said that a lack of medicines, adequate heating and safe drinking water had exacerbated the effects of the food shortage which has put all North Korean children at risk of malnutrition.

He said the World Food Programme, in its biggest ever emergency operation, is aiming to provide school meals for all children up to the age of twelve.

Last year the agency concentrated on feeding the almost five million children under six years old.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service