Stephan Haggard on N. Korean Food Shortages
Severe food shortages in N.Korea: aid groups
02/24/2011
Shaun Tandon,
AFP
North Korea is facing a severe food shortage with people reduced to searching for wild grass to eat, US aid groups said after visiting the communist nation.
The five agencies made a joint appeal for international assistance to feed the most vulnerable populations in North Korea, where hundreds of thousands of people died in a famine in the 1990s.
"The team observed evidence of malnutrition, food shortages and people foraging for wild grasses and herbs," said a joint statement by the groups.
"These trends are particularly prevalent among families that depend on the North Korea public food distribution system, and most severely impact children, the elderly, the chronically ill and pregnant and nursing mothers," it said.
The five groups are Christian Friends of Korea, Global Resource Services, Mercy Corps, Samaritan's Purse and World Vision, which all have experience working in the politically isolated nation.
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Stephan Haggard can provide commentary on current developments in the Asia-Pacific, including particularly Korea, and on the politics of economic reform and globalization.
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