Yonhap
1/17/2007
North Korea has failed to deliver on its promise to distribute food rations across the communist country on the occasion of the New Year, a civic aid group said Wednesday.
“Except for Pyongyang, no special New Year food rations were issued,” Good Friends, a Seoul-based civic relief organization, said in its latest monthly newsletter.
The group said that North Korean authorities had planned to provide food rations equal to the daily household consumption of rice across the country, but three days worth of rice and 500 grams of bean oil were distributed only for residents in Pyongyang.
“Mid-level officials living in Pyongyang received food rations to last a half month and electricity was provided for the city during the New Year,” it said.
North Korea has suffered from a chronic food shortage since the mid 1990s due to a series of natural disasters aggravated by an overall economic downturn. However, the North had always managed to prioritize food distribution to ensure the inhabitants of the capital Pyongyang do not go without it, experts say.
