N. Korea faces spectre of famine with worst ever drought

SEOUL: North Korea is experiencing its worst drought in over a century, official media reported yesterday, days after the World Food Programme expressed “very serious concerns” about the situation in the country.

The isolated, impoverished North — which is under several sets of sanctions over its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programmes — has long struggled to feed itself and suffers chronic food shortages.

It recorded its worst harvest for a decade last year, according to the United Nations, down by 500,000 tonnes as natural disasters combined with its lack of arable land and inefficient agriculture to hit production.

In the year to Wednesday, the North received just 56.3mm of rain or snow, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported yesterday, the lowest since 1917.

Water was running out in the country’s lakes and reservoirs, said the paper, the official mouthpiece of the ruling Workers’ Party, adding: “The ongoing drought is causing a significant effect on the cultivation of wheat, barley, corn, potatoes and beans.”

In their most recent estimates, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Programme said about 10.1 million North Koreans — 40 per cent of the population — were suffering from severe food shortages, a similar figure to recent years.

Hundreds of thousands are believed to have died during a famine in the mid- to late 1990s, a period known as the “Arduous March” in the North.