NORTH KOREA AND AID

NORTH KOREA REQUESTS EMERGENCY FLOOD AID FROM UNITED NATIONS

Sangwon Yoon

Bloomberg, August 3, 2012

North Korea requested emergency supplies, including food, as it tries to recover from last month’s torrential rains and flooding, the United Nations said.

The North Korean government “requested that the UN release its pre-positioned emergency stocks, including food and fuel”after more than 100 people died and 100,000 lost their homes, Martin Nesirky, spokesman for Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, said yesterday in a statement on Ban’s website. Nesirky didn’t say whether supplies will be provided.

North Korea needs immediate food assistance and better access to clean water to avoid diseases, the UN resident coordinator’s office in the capital, Pyongyang, said in an e-mailed report yesterday after making two visits with the Red Cross and other NGOs on July 31 to the three most affected counties.

Natural disasters more severely affect the communist nation, which has suffered for decades from chronic food shortages, economic mismanagement, and growing isolation from the international community because of its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

The UN expanded sanctions against North Korea for firing a long-range missile on April 13, a test that failed. The launch cost North Korea’s new leader Kim Jong Un a deal with the U.S. for 240,000 metric tons of food that was promised in exchange for a moratorium on nuclear and missile tests.

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