UNICEF warns of medicine shortages

BEIJING -- Warning that its clinics in North Korea will run out of medicines next month, the U.N. children's agency issued an urgent appeal Tuesday for donations, asking countries to set aside any unease about helping the North during its nuclear crisis.

UNICEF has received less than $500,000 of the $12 million it needs this year to buy medicines, high-energy milk and other supplies for 2.5 million North Korean children, said Mehr Khan, its Asia-Pacific director. She said more than half of that came from Norway, while many other previous donors have given nothing.

Without new donations, UNICEF clinics will run out of medicine next month and other supplies in coming months, Khan said.

"Unless urgent assistance is provided, we could see malnutrition rates go up," Khan said at a news conference after returning from a weeklong visit to the North.

Khan said she didn't know why giving has fallen off. But asked whether it could be linked to tensions over the North's nuclear program and missile tests that have unsettled its neighbors, she said that was a possibility and appealed for donors to set aside any such unease in order to help the isolated country's children.

Relying on foreign aid

North Korea has relied on foreign aid to feed its people since its state-run farm system collapsed in the mid-1990s following decades of mismanagement and the loss of Soviet subsidies.

The World Food Program, another U.N. agency that feeds millions of North Koreans, also says donations are down sharply, meaning it could run out of food by June.

A joint survey by U.N. agencies and the North Korean government in October found healthier children. Among other things, it said, the proportion of underweight children under age 7 was 21 percent, down from 61 percent in 1998.

Despite that, "the rations are not adequate," said Richard Bridle, the UNICEF representative in Pyongyang. "We say there's an improvement, (but it is) from a disastrous situation to a bad one."

Bridle said that with the last harvest in October and another not due until June, food is running short. He noted that workers who pruned trees in his Pyongyang office compound saved the bark to eat.