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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - TIME is running out to avert a humanitarian tragedy in North Korea due to acute food shortages, a United Nations (UN) agency warned on Wednesday.
'The food security situation...is clearly bad and getting worse,' said Tony Banbury, the World Food Programme's (WFP) Asia director.
'It is increasingly likely that external assistance will be urgently required to avert a serious tragedy,' he said in a statement.
The WFP estimates that over 6.5 million people, out of a population of 23 million, do not have enough to eat. It said the figure would rise unless urgent action is taken.
Mr Banbury called on international donors to increase aid, and urged North Korea to allow aid agencies to check that food is reaching the needy.
South Korean officials said in February that some of Seoul's rice aid intended for hungry civilians had been diverted to frontline army units.
The hardline communist state suffered famine in the mid- to late 1990s which killed hundreds of thousands.
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