North Korea has opened a key sea route on the western coast to receive humanitarian aid deliveries following its closure attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, a United Nations agency official said Friday.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has begun shipping medical supplies from the Chinese port of Dalian to North Korea's Nampo and plans to deliver more items, according to its Seoul office. 

"A limited shipment of health and nutrition supplies has been delivered through the sea route from China's Dalian to Nampo," Oren Schlein, the head of the UNICEF Seoul Liaison Office, said during a peace forum held in Incheon, west of Seoul. "The UN agencies are in discussions with the Government of DPRK to deliver further supplies in the coming months."

North Korea has tightened border controls since the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, closing sea and land routes for key materials and medical supplies sent by UN agencies and other humanitarian groups.

Marian Yun, a senior policy adviser at World Food Program, another UN agency in charge of food aid, said Pyongyang needs to ease its border restrictions to receive crucial aid to address its food shortage.

"The WFP's food stockpile in North Korea has already run out this year," Yun said. "The most important factor in North Korea's food situation is whether or not its government approves the deliveries of humanitarian aid."

Last week, the World Health Organization said it has begun the shipment of COVID-19 medical supplies to North Korea through Dalian, raising the possibility that the reclusive state might be easing its long-enforced tight border controls amid the global pandemic.

Pyongyang has claimed to be coronavirus-free and rejected outside help for its anti-epidemic campaign for fear that any shipment could spread the virus to its soil. (Yonhap)