UNICEF warns of child deaths in North Korea drought

“The situation is urgent”, said UNICEF Regional Director Daniel Toole in a press release.

UNICEF said its personnel have recently met with local health officials in affected provinces of DPRK who confirm reports of significant increases in diarrhoea among children, as the absence of rain threatens access to safe water and sanitation.

The North’s KCNA news agency said in June that paddies around the country – including in the main rice farming regions of Hwanghae and Phyongan provinces in the south – were drying up due to the lack of rainfall, causing great damage. “UNICEF has already received reports that the incidence of diarrhea, globally a leading cause of death among young children-has increased seriously in the first six months of 2015 in the drought-affected provinces”.

SEOUL – North Korea received enough rainfall in June to ease drought conditions that had been described by Pyongyang as the worst in a century, although parts of the country remain acutely short of water, the South Korean government said on Friday.

“If we delay until we are certain of crop failures, it may well be too late to save the most vulnerable children”, Toole said in a statement.

Based onresearch UNICEF conducted in 2012, one fourth of North Korean children were suffering from chronic malnutrition, making them vulnerable to waterborne diseases.

UNICEF sent first aid supplies such as water purification tablets and nutrition supplementsto the drought-affected areas, but states that additional aid is needed. Radio Free Asia reported Saturday that the United Nations Children’s Fund will supply medical supplies to about ten-thousand children suffering from acute malnutrition in Hwanghaebuk-do province.

Toole said responding to the current drought crisis was hard given North Korea’s isolation and the lack of funding for children-focused programmes in the country. About UNICEF UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do.