Fact Sheet on the Summit Council's
Humanitarian Relief Fund Project for North Korea

March 1996

Donations should be made out to the "Summit Council Humanitarian Relief Fund." They will be transferred to the United Nations World Food Program, earmarked for North Korean flood relief. For more information, please contact the Summit Council's office at:

Summit Council for World Peace
2329 California St., NW
Washington, DC 20008
Tel. (202) 387-9070
Fax: (202) 387-9066
E-mail: scwpeace@aol.com


Here is a current AP news article on the World Food Program:

UN Sending Rice To N. Koreans
Date: Thu Mar 07 18:40:45 EST 1996

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Thailand, the world's biggest rice exporter, is donating 5,635 tons of rice to help ease a food crisis in North Korea.

The food aid, arranged by the United Nations' World Food Program, is being loaded onto a Chinese freighter for shipment by the end of the week, a port agent in Bangkok said Thursday.

The U.N. agency paid for the rice with donations from the United States, Australia and the four Nordic countries.

North Koreans face possible starvation after floods devastated rice-growing areas last summer. North Korea's Communist government, which for decades promoted the idea of national self-reliance, has made an unprecedented appeal for foreign aid.

The World Food Program arranged a first emergency shipment of 6,540 tons of low-quality rice, also from Thailand, last November. This week's load is scheduled to reach the North Korean port of Nampo after a 10-day voyage, said Alan Mehew, the agent handling the shipment.

The World Food Program said it plans to send a third shipment of at least 3,000 tons.

But North Korea's needs, estimated at 1.2 million tons, dwarf the agency's contributions so far. Millions of children and pregnant women could starve by summer unless donor countries provide more food aid, the agency warned.