WFP has to halt food aid for 400,000 North Koreans
The World Food Programme (WFP) said it had received only $23.2 million towards its appeal of $102.2 million for North Korea in 2007 and 2008.
"Due to a lack of funds, we will have to suspend distribution of food to 400,000 of the 700,000 people we are helping," WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume told a briefing.
This is particularly worrying as the reclusive communist country entered a "lean season" last month during which families' personal food supplies are at their lowest until September, she said.
A school feeding programme will have to be cut in September if funds are not forthcoming, she added.
Berthiaume repeated WFP's appeal for donors to "make a difference between humanitarian needs and politics", but declined to be more specific.
Food donations to North Korea fell dramatically in 2006, a year in which Pyongyang stayed away from six-party talks aimed at dismantling its atomic programme and conducted its first nuclear test.
Australia and Switzerland are the largest of a dozen donors, which do not include either South Korea or the United States, according to Berthiaume.
Several million North Koreans face hunger and malnutrition from a food shortage of nearly 1 million tonnes, or about 20 percent of its needs, the WFP said after a visit in late March.
The WFP had been feeding some 2 million people, but reduced the number after the government said it expected a good harvest and more bilateral contributions.
- Reuters - Thomson Reuters Foundation
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