UN: Food Supply Tenuous For 16 Million North Koreans

By JEAN H. LEE | Associated Press

A North Korean woman works on an apple farm near Pyongyang in April 2012. Some 16 million people -- two-thirds of the population -- depend on the state rationing system and suffer varying degrees of chronic food insecurity, six UN agencies operating inside the North say in a report released Tuesday
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Millions of North Korean children are not getting the food, medicine or health care they need to develop physically or mentally, leaving an entire generation stunted and malnourished, the United Nations said Tuesday.
Nearly a third of North Korean children under age 5 show signs of stunting,
particularly in rural areas where food is scarce, and scores are dying from diarrhea due to a lack of access to clean water, sanitation and electricity, the agency said.
Hospitals are spotless but bare; few have running water or power, and drugs and medicine are in short supply, the agency said in a detailed update on the humanitarian situation in North Korea.

A North Korean man with his bicycle near the residential projects in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Thursday April 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

North Korean residents of the capital city mingle on the side of the street in Pyongyang, North Korea on Thursday, April 12, 2012. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

North Koreans are seen at a residential compound in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, April 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)A North Korean woman peeps out of a window at a residential building in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, April 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

A woman carries a baby on her back in Pyongyang, North Korea neighborhood on Thursday, April 12, 2012. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
People in the capital, Pyongyang, live in relative comfort, but the situation in the rest of the country is more dire. About 16 million North Koreans — two-thirds of the country — rely on twice-a-month government rations, the report said. And there are no signs the government will undertake the long-term structural reforms needed to spur economic growth, it said.
North Korea does not produce enough food to feed its 24 million people, and relies on limited purchases of food as well as outside donations to make up the shortfall.
The United Nations called for $198 million in donations for 2012 — mostly to help feed the hungry but also to invest in programs designed to mitigate and prevent a chronic food shortage that has resulted in persistent malnutrition among North Korea's young.
The appeal comes at a delicate time for North Korea, which has sought to put forth an image of stability and unity during the transition to power of the new, young leader,
Kim Jong Un. Yet it has begun to publicly acknowledging a severe shortage of food for the first time in years.
"Malnutrition over a generation can have a long-lasting effect on a population in terms of physical growth, cognitive capacity, the ability to learn," said Jerome Sauvage, the U.N.'s Pyongyang-based resident coordinator for North Korea. "The long-term effect of malnutrition can be very severe for a whole generation and on the whole population."
Follow AP's Korea bureau chief at twitter.com/newsjean.
Associated Press writer Hyung-jin Kim contributed to this story from Seoul, South Korea.
MTW- Even with the UN sending food to North Korea, is there any way to know if it is getting past the top one-third of their most powerful people (the ones not starving), and making it to those in need? What a dreary place. I feel for the Citizens of North Korea. The little dictator over there is crazier than his father. God help those poor peasants.
GOD BLESS YOU ALL.
Posted by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy