AFP/Seoul

June rainfall has helped alleviate what North Korea has described as its worst drought for a century, although key rice-producing areas remain badly affected, the South Korean government said yesterday.
“It seems that ... the situation has considerably eased,” Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee told reporters.
The ministry said that, following an extremely dry May, rainfall in June had reached 90% of the level recorded a year ago.
Nevertheless, Jeong said crucial rice-producing provinces such as Hwanghae and Hamgyeong were “still grappling with a prolonged drought” that would require close monitoring.
North Korean state media has called the drought the “worst in 100 years” and, according to the UN World Food Programme, early-harvest crops, mainly wheat and barley, have already been affected. The UN Children’s Fund, Unicef, warned on Thursday that urgent action was required to prevent the deaths of children already weakened by widespread malnutrition.
A 2012 study showed one-quarter of all North Korean children had symptoms of chronic malnutrition — a condition usually caused by a combination of unsafe water and poor sanitation, inadequate food intake, and inadequate access to health services.
North Korea has suffered regular chronic food shortages — hundreds of thousands are believed to have died during a famine in the mid-to-late 1990s — with the situation exacerbated by floods, droughts and mismanagement.
International food aid, especially from South Korea and the US, has been drastically cut amid tensions over the communist state’s nuclear and missile programmes.
UN figures show up to 70% of the country remains food insecure.

Related Story