Millions of people are at risk after flooding and poor harvests caused North Korea’s worst food crisis since the late 1990s, the United Nation’s food agency warned today.
North Korea’s food shortage worsened this year after floods in 2007, followed by poor harvests, the World Food Programme (WFP) said.
“Millions of vulnerable North Koreans are at risk of slipping towards precarious hunger levels. The last time hunger was so deep and so widespread in parts of the country was in the late 1990s,” Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the WFP’s country director for North Korea, told a news conference today.
He said an international appeal for aid would be launched in the next two weeks.