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UN To Resume Wider N Korea Food Distribution, But Needs More Aid
The U.N. World Food Program said Monday it will resume the distribution of food to 1.2 million North Korean teenagers and elderly people, but may have to scrap the program unless it receives more foreign donations. Earlier Monday, one source said the WFP had scrapped its plans to resume distributing the food to children and the elderly because donors hadn't provided enough supplies. However, John Powell, the WFP's Asian regional director, said the wider distribution would go forward, but cautioned that "unless we get additional donations within a month or so, we will again have to can the program." The agency also is feeding 4.2 million younger children and pregnant and nursing women, but spokesman Gerald Bourke said that program also could face cutbacks without more foreign support. North Korea has relied on foreign aid to feed its people since the mid-1990s, when the secretive communist country disclosed its farm system had collapsed. Aid workers said a current shortfall in donations is due, in part, to a shift in international attention and aid to rebuilding Afghanistan. If the WFP receives another 130,000 tons of cereals, it will be able to feed all 6.4 million North Koreans covered by its programs until Dec. 31, Powell said. If not, he said, the program for the older children and the elderly will stop at the end of September. "Already malnourished, starving people are going to go even hungrier," Bourke said by telephone from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, adding that the first "priority is still the most vulnerable of the vulnerable - young children, pregnant and nursing women." The WFP cut off the food program for elderly people and secondary school students in May, blaming a lack of foreign donations. Since then, many North Koreans had to scavenge for grass on hillsides and seaweed along seashores. Teachers and students skipped school to search for food. After the U.S. promised an additional 100,000 tons of food, the agency said the program would resume in August. In a joint report released Monday, however, the WFP and the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization said North Korea still needs more food donations, even though the winter and spring harvests this year were bigger than in previous years. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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