UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th December, 2019) Top UN official urged all member states to contribute to lifesaving operations in North Korea and said $87 million was still needed to cover this year's needs.
"I urge all member states to fund lifesaving humanitarian operations in the DPRK," Mohamed Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General for the middle East, Asia and the Pacific, said during a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday.
He estimated that some $120 million were required to address critical humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable 3.8 million people in North Korea in 2019 and said that a gap of $87 million remained.
Last week, South Korea announced plans to allocate $5 million in humanitarian assistance to Pyongyang through the World Health Organization (WHO) in order to make medical care more accessible to North Korean citizens.
