With four in every 10 North Korean children suffering from severe malnutrition, donor states should keep the issue of humanitarian aid to the country completely separate from political agendas related to the nuclear-armed state, the visiting top relief official of the United Nations said.

Speaking in Seoul after her recent trip to North Korea and China, Valerie Amos, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said some 6 million North Koreans, particularly children, pregnant and breast-feeding women, need help.

After visiting farms, local markets, hospitals and speaking to officials as well as ordinary workers and moms, Amos said, she learned that people’s diets consisted mostly of corn, cabbage and rarely rice, which left them with almost no protein.

“When we’re looking at humanitarian issues, one of the core principles is not to view it from politics and to help people in most urgent need. That is the point I make to every donor,” Amos told a group of reporters and correspondents in Seoul.

The U.N. official said she acknowledged the skepticism in South Korea and elsewhere over whether Pyongyang was honest about the food conditions.

“I can understand that people are skeptical because not much information is coming out (related to North Korea’s food situation) … to see what is happening on the national basis,” she said. “This is why data collecting is important as I told authorities in North Korea.”

The U.N. requested in April for $218 million in humanitarian aid for North Korea. Only about a third has been given out as key donors including the U.S. and South Korea have been reluctant to hand out food before making sure it will be properly distributed and that the Pyongyang regime is not secretly stockpiling food.

Amos emphasized that based on what she saw, the food shortage in North Korea was indeed serious, especially regarding the severe malnutrition among the North Koreans.

“In terms of this year’s harvest, the amount may be the same or slightly better than last year, but it wouldn’t be enough to feed the whole country (with 24 million people),” the U.N. official said. “And people are getting very little protein.”

According to Amos, food rations in North Korea have fallen from 600 grams a day to 200 grams a day per person, with the required amount of food increasing each year.

Amos said she emphasized the importance of data and information to the North Korean officials she met during her trip to the country earlier this month.

“We need to know who is getting the food and how much, and a proper sense of impact the food is having,” she said.

In November, the U.N. plans to conduct a nutrition survey on some 3,000 children in North Korea by measuring the thickness of their arms to “have a proper date on what impact” the food is having, Amos added.

By Shin Hae-in (hayney@heraldcorp.com)