DATE=12/14/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=NORTH KOREA FAMINE (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-257125
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The top United Nations official in North
Korea says harvests in the famine-stricken country
have improved but that it remains chronically short of
food and dependent on international aid. VOA
correspondent Roger Wilkison reports the official,
David Morton, told reporters in Beijing that - as
winter arrives - North Korea is being hit by severe
shortages of fuel and medicine.
TEXT: Mr. Morton, the UN's resident coordinator in
Pyongyang, says the effects of North Korea's energy
crisis are especially evident now that winter is
arriving and sub-zero temperatures are the norm.
/////MORTON ACTUALITY/////
There are really a great many difficulties now for
many people to keep warm. The institutions are not
all heated. Factories, even government offices, are
not heated. The hospitals that we go to - it's often
warmer to talk to the medical staff outside rather
than inside, and the schools and the kindergartens may
sometimes be heated if the parents bring some wood.
/////END ACTUALITY/////
Mr. Morton says the U-N believes the food crisis
peaked in 1996 and 1997 and that the food situation
has improved, as a result of better harvests over the
past two years and large donations of food aid.
/////MORTON ACTUALITY/////
But the crisis is by no means over. It's still there,
and, in fact, on the health situation, we see a
deterioration in the delivery of health services and
in the condition of people.
/////END ACTUALITY/////
Mr. Morton says a recent survey by the U-N Food and
Agriculture Organization concluded that, despite an
increase in grain production, North Korea will still
have a shortfall this year of one-point-three million
tons. He says the country still needs food aid and
that it also requires development aid to rehabilitate
its agricultural sector. Even though the reclusive
Communist state has doubled its use of fertilizer -
thanks in part to donations from South Korea - it
still has less than one-third of what it needs to
further boost agricultural production.
Another urgent need is for drugs and medicine. Mr.
Morton says although the U-N's top priorities for the
stricken country are food aid and development
assistance, it will also focus next year on improving
health services as well as sanitation.
Mr. Morton says he does not know how many people died
from hunger-related diseases since North Korea was hit
by a series of natural disasters in the mid-1990s. But
he says the food crisis there has taken its toll. He
notes that the North Korean government now says the
country's population last year was 22-point-five
million. That is one million fewer than earlier
projections.
The U-N official says urban dwellers can buy food at
officially approved farmers' markets, where produce
comes from private plots. But he says few people can
afford the high prices. He also says there is little
sign of economic reform in the tightly controlled
communist country. (SIGNED)
NEB/RW/FC
14-Dec-1999 05:13 AM EDT (14-Dec-1999 1013 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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