The European Commission today unveiled aid worth €9.5 million to help prevent starvation among North Korean children.
Aid Commissioner Mr Poul Nielson said a large proportion of North Korea's 23 million people face food shortages and the situation is set to worsen this winter.
The aid will buy 39,000 tonnes of grain "for the most vulnerable, and especially children and mothers of new-born babies", the European Commission said in a statement, adding it was targeting more than two million people.
Mr Nielson said the aid would be channelled through the UN's World Food Programme, which he said faced shortfalls resulting from reductions in aid for North Korea from the United States and Japan. Washington and Pyongyang are now locked in a tense stand-off over North Korea's decision to revive its mothballed nuclear drive and expel United Nations monitors. "We refuse to enter into any political game with our humanitarian aid, which is not entirely the case with other donors," said an official with the European Union's executive arm, declining to be named.
Brussels said the aid did not undermine the EU's "determination" to see North Korea comply with its international obligations.
AFP