UN warns of North Korea food crisis

Ms Bertini blamed the country's political system

The United Nations has warned that millions of people face starvation in North Korea unless foreign aid is dramatically increased.

An entire generation of children has been severely damaged by the food crisis in North Korea

Catherine Bertini

The UN's World Food Programme said a whole generation of children were growing up malnourished - while others did not even survive that long.

Its director Catherine Bertini told the BBC that the country's chronic food shortage would not improve for a long time to come.

Hospitals lack basic antibiotics and vaccines

The UN is appealing for nearly $400m in aid next year - four times the amount requested this year.

The appeal follows similar warnings from a US congressman who described the crisis as one of the great disasters of the past 50 years.

'Structural' problem

Ms Bertini told the BBC that, although drought and typhoons had caused serious damage to agricultural production, the real problem was structural.

North Korea is desperate for food aid

She said the situation would not improve until there was government support for economic alternatives to the current way of doing business.

The country's Communist system, she believed, was not performing for the North Korean people.

Eating twigs

US congressman Tony Hall, who has just visited the country, painted a grim picture of people surviving on about 200g of food a day.

Korean "alternative food"

40% grain

60% twigs, leaves, bark

He said the situation in the Stalinist state had deteriorated since last year, with food production down by 50%.

Mr Hall said most people outside the capital were becoming increasingly reliant on a substitute food containing ground-up tree bark and twigs that often caused dysentery, diarrhoea and internal bleeding.

North Korea, the world's most secretive country, very rarely allows foreign visitors to leave the capital, Pyongyang.

Hospitals were cold, barren, dirty and filled with the stench of sickness

Tony Hall

But Mr Hall was permitted to visit the eastern town of Chongjin and rural areas.

He told a news conference in the South Korean capital, Seoul, that hospitals had virtually no medicine, heating or food.

Mr Hall displayed a coil of dry brown noodles which he said was made by an "alternative food" factory in Chongjin.

The ingredients were 40% grain and 60% twigs, leaves and bark.