ROME - The UN's food aid agency called for large scale emergency aid to North Korea yesterday to prevent a famine that could turn into "one of the biggest humanitarian disasters of our lifetime". "The countdown to famine has begun," Ms Catherine Bertini, executive director of the Rome based World Food Programme, said in a statement. "The window of opportunity to avert famine is rapidly closing and could already have closed. The real issue facing us is not whether there will be famine but how many people will actually die."
The WFP launched a $95.5 million appeal earlier this month to purchase and deliver 203,000 tonnes of emergency food to North Korea, where unprecedented flooding in 1995/96 devastated entire cereal crops. But the agency said yesterday that it had received just one third of the money requested and estimated North Korea needed 1.3 million tonnes of additional food to meet its basic needs in 1997. She called on the international community to increase aid contributions to the WFP's emergency fund before it was too late to stop a crisis.
North Korean authorities have said food supplies will run out at the end of April. The WFP estimated there was only enough food to feed the country until June.
The United States recently delivered $25 million in food aid to North Korea but has refused to pledge further assistance or lift trade sanctions against Pyongyang's communist leadership until it agrees to proposed four nation peace talks.