Donations for N. Korea food aid dwindle
BEIJING - The United Nations food agency cannot feed millions of hungry women and children in impoverished North Korea because international donations have dried up and the communist regime has restricted its operations, an official said yesterday.
The World Food Program has received only 15 percent of the $504 million it needs to feed 6.2 million vulnerable North Koreans as the food situation worsens during a lean growing season before the November harvest, according to Torben Due, the food program’s representative for North Korea.
Due would not give a reason for the funding shortfall but said he understood that donors may be responding to the political situation in North Korea.
The food program has received no contributions after North Korea carried out a nuclear test in May, he said. That test drew international condemnation and garnered UN sanctions.
The North Korean government has also told the agency to scale back its operations, Due said, and to get rid of its Korean-speaking staff, which reduced the number of workers to 16 last month from the 59 agreed upon last year.
The agency launched its humanitarian food program in October 2008. 