Starving population eating grass as famine begins to bite

Famine is worsening in North Korea, with some people reduced to eating soup made from grass and spring cabbages, says a Western aid official in Pyongyang.

Grain rations for some people have been cut from nine kilograms a month to 71/2 kg, said Trevor Page of the World Food Programme.

'It is like China during the famine in the early 1960s,' he said, referring to the famine which followed the Great Leap Forward in which at least 30 million died.

In cities, people were raising chickens on their balconies and many were combing parks and fields to pick wild grasses to mix with grain in soup, because even rations of the staple kimchee - pickled cabbage - have been drastically cut.

Instead of getting 120 kg of kimchee in November, some North Koreans had their winter ration reduced to only 20 kg.

On Friday, the International Federation of the Red Cross issued an appeal for US$6 million (HK$46.35 million) of donations, although earlier international appeals have met with a poor response.

North Korea is short of one million tonnes of grain which the country needs to keep it going until the new harvest in October.