North Korean soldiers walk past the first regular South Korean cargo train after its arrival at the Panmun station in Kaesong, North Korea, December 11, 2007. (Korea Pool/Reuters)Millions Suffer Food Crisis In North Korea: UN -- CBC
The United Nations food agency said Thursday that millions of North Koreans face a food crisis, but a South Korean official said that Seoul has not decided whether to respond to a request for food aid to the communist country.
"Some areas of the northeastern provinces in the country … have become extremely vulnerable, facing a situation of a humanitarian emergency," Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the World Food Programme's country director for North Korea, said at a forum on North Korea.
Around 2.7 million people on North Korea's west coast will also run out of food in October, the WFP said in a report released Tuesday.
The food shortages have forced many North Koreans to go to hills to collect wild food to complement their daily rations and reduce the number of meals per day to two, said de Margerie.
Asked if North Koreans face starvation, he said his agency hasn't seen any evidence of starvation but said, "We have reached [a] very critical level and we shouldn't wait for another starvation before ringing the alarm bells."
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My Comment: The second North Korean famine in 10 years.