Joong Ang Daily:
10/12/2006
Ser Myo-ja
Besides cement, South Korea’s humanitarian aid of rice to North Korea has been temporarily suspended due to the country’s nuclear brinksmanship, the chief of the Red Cross said yesterday.
In an interview with Yonhap News Agency, Han Wang-sang said South Korea, which sends its aid through the Red Cross, had promised to send rice and cement as a part of its flood relief aid.
International rights groups and relief organizations yesterday worried that North Koreans will suffer a worsened food crisis. They said the perennial springtime famine in the North would become more serious next year.
The World Food Program feared that it may have to halt distribution in the North. “If we don’t get more contributions, we won’t have any more food and food aid in January,” Christiane Berthiaume, spokeswoman for the UN agency, said Tuesday in Geneva.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch also urged the world not to suspend food aid to the North. The international community “must distinguish between the North Korean government and ordinary citizens,” said Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director of the nongovernmental agency. “Further restraints on food aid will only make ordinary North Koreans suffer more.”
According to the Unification Ministry, the North each year consumes 6.5 million tons of food including rice, corn and potatoes. Last year, the country’s production was only 4.5 million tons, although the country proudly publicized a bumper crop.
