WFP APPEALS FOR URGENT INCREASE IN EMERGENCY FOOD AID TO HUNGRY CHILDREN IN DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA
Press Release
WFP/1043
WFP APPEALS FOR URGENT INCREASE IN EMERGENCY FOOD AID TO HUNGRY CHILDREN IN DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA
19970709 GENEVA, 9 July (WFP) -- The World Food Programme (WFP) issued an urgent appeal today for $45.7 million in additional food aid to provide survival rations to children in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea threatened with starvation because of critical food shortages.The funds would allow the WFP to more than double the emergency food rations it is currently supplying to about 2.6 million children aged six and younger to ensure that they survive the crisis caused by two years of devastating floods in the country.
The WFP also reported that it is expanding its monitoring staff in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to ensure that the aid provided by the international donor community reaches the children and members of other vulnerable groups.
"Of all the people WFP is assisting in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, young children are the most vulnerable", WFP Executive Director Catherine Bertini told a news conference. "Our staff in the country estimates that 50 to 80 per cent of the children they have seen in nurseries are underweight and markedly smaller than they should be for their age. They are literally wasting away", Ms. Bertini said.
The WFP staff reported that at two hospitals they visited in the north- west of the country, medical personnel were only treating those malnourished children who manifested additional complications such as pneumonia or diarrhoea. Personnel said those who were simply malnourished were sent home, and it was expected many would die.
"We are currently supplying each child with daily rations totalling 100 grams. These nations were meant to supplement their regular diet, but have now become their entire source of nourishment -- and they are not enough", Ms. Bertini said. "We must do more. An entire generation is at risk. Malnutrition not only hampers physical development, but mental growth as well. Ultimately, it can result in death."
The new appeal, issued jointly by the WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), will allow the WFP to increase cereals to 250 grams per child per day for all children of six and younger and provide extra high- energy biscuits and dried skimmed milk to malnourished children. A small part
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of the new aid will also go to hospital patients. The additional grain, combined with a food basket of oil and pulses, will provide a total of 1,100 kilocalories for each child, an amount that WFP nutritionists say is reasonable for children under six.
The new appeal for $45,685,348, or 129,534 metric tons of food, is in addition to the $95,809,672, which donors were asked to provide earlier this year for 203,666 tons. These food needs have now been successfully met, thanks to strong donor response.
The new appeal brings to a total of $141,495,020 or 333,200 tons, the amount the WFP is seeking for assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea so far this year. Depending on the resources made available, the WFP will continue to review the situation in the country with the aim of providing additional food assistance and expanding the scope of its operations.
The appeal follows a special alert by an FAO/WFP Crop and Food Assessment Mission, which found, on a visit to the country in May, that the country was entering a critical period until the next harvest in October. It said that, even after the harvest, food supplies will not be sufficient.
Even with announced multilateral and bilateral food aid pledges and commercial barter imports, the country still faces a food deficit of about 1 million tons this year. Supplementary rations of cereals, pulses and vegetables oil are distributed at nurseries, kindergartens and orphanages, and fortified blended food is given to babies and malnourished children.
In addition to the children, the WFP is assisting an estimated 1 million hospital patients and some 250,000 farmers and others employed in food-for- work projects and their dependants. The projects are removing flood debris from farm land, repairing roads and other rural infrastructure and managing the watershed system to mitigate the effects of future floods.
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