Seoul (AsiaNews) - South Korean authorities have given the green light to ChildFund Korea, a South Korean non-governmental organisation, to deliver to North Korea 180 tonnes of wheat flour and 20 tonnes of nutritious soybean flour worth US$ 200,000.
This is the largest amount of humanitarian aid allowed by President Park Geun-hye who, since she took office a year ago, has taken a hard line against Pyongyang.
The aid left the South Korean port of Incheon this morning for the North Korean port of Nampo. North Korea's National Reconciliation Council, government organisation in charge of relations with South Korea, will distribute the food aid to about 23,000 children in 332 day-care centres and 29,000 mothers and pregnant women in Nampo. This is the equivalent of about 10 days' worth of rations.
ChildFund announced that some members are going with the shipment to ensure it reaches its destination.
According to the late Kim Jong-il's Seon'gun (Songun) policy, military defence remains North Korea's top priority. With a population 23 million, North Korea has 2.3 million people in the military.
In view of this, humanitarian aid from the South or from the United States was often seized by the military, ending up up in army cafeterias or on the black market.
To avoid this, the few humanitarian associations allowed in the North, including the Eugene Bell Foundation, which treats TB patients, send their own officials to follow the aid until its final destination.
However, increased North Korean military provocations and the election of a right-wing president in South Korea have cut the amount of aid that reaches North Korean civilians.
In the past year, South Korean charities been authorised to travel to the North only on ten occasions, and all had to do so via China because of a ban on intra-Korean border crossing.