Aid Worker: N. Korea’s Young Desperately Hungry

A North Korean official says about 60,000 children ages 5 and under may not survive North Korea’s severe food shortage, an international aid worker said Wednesday.

Oxfam Hong Kong’s Tricia Parker said she saw throngs of desperately hungry children at kindergartens and hospitals during a recent 10-day trip to North Korea.

At one school, 6- and 7-year-olds were being fed one small meal every other day, she said. Children everywhere were bone thin, and many were too weak to even sit up, video footage of her trip shows.

Parker said a North Korean official told her about 10 percent of children under 5 - or 60,000 youngsters - faced death from starvation.

On Monday, a member of Parker’s team, Dr. Allyson Thirkell, told reporters in Beijing that one kindergarten with 350 children reported the starvation deaths of 25 children last year and 15 more this year.

Three relief agencies - Oxfam, Hong Kong Red Cross and Caritas-Hong Kong - plan to petition the Hong Kong government Thursday for $640,000 in emergency food aid.

A severe drought has damaged hundreds of thousands of acres of crop land, exacerbating North Korea’s acute food shortage.