The UN food agency has made an eleventh hour appeal for food aid to famine-hit North Korea, warning that children, women and the elderly will starve in three months if donations are not received immediately.
North Korea's people are "looking down the barrel" of a major food crisis, the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) said.
It said the international community could not plead ignorance of the looming crisis.
"Without further contributions, we will run out of food in July or August," said Mr John M Powell, director of the WFP's Asia bureau.
"It takes about two to four months to translate a pledge from a donor into food in the stomach of a child in North Korea," he said.
"This means the people to whom WFP food is directed, overwhelmingly women and children, are looking down the barrel of a food crisis. We do not want anyone saying: Didn't you know it was going to happen? or Why didn't you say something?"
Mr Powell told a news conference in Beijing that the country remained heavily dependent on food aid despite a seven-year-long UN assistance programme.
AFP