Geneva - United Nations agencies yesterday appealed for $376 million to feed 5.5 million hungry people next year in North Korea, where malnutrition rates remain among the highest in the world.
About $101 million has already been pledged to the interagency appeal, a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs told a news briefing. A recent assessment of domestic cereal production in North Korea undertaken jointly by two UN agencies confirmed that the country would enter 1999 with a cereal deficit of over one million tonnes.