The World Food Programme (WFP), which helps feed almost a third of North Korea's population, said on Friday it may have to cut off all aid to the reclusive country by October without new donations. The U.N. body targets 3.8 million people as "core recipients" of food aid in North Korea and says another 2.7 million people receive aid through work-for-food programmes and other schemes. Widespread famine struck North Korea in the 1990s after a series of natural disasters and poor harvests following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Pyongyang's other eastern European Communist allies. The WFP has provided food aid to North Korea since 1995. Vegetable oil and pulse handouts had already been reduced, and in June the WFP would stop providing cereal to 2.1 million North Korean primary school children, old people and poor urban residents, WFP spokesman Gerald Bourke told Reuters. "From August 1, it will only be 12,000 kids in orphanages and hospitals that will be getting cereals. So, we're right down to the wire," Bourke said. "Cutting down to 12,000 is tantamount to having nothing." On Oct. 1, unless the WFP attracted new donations or bought more food, it would no longer be able to feed those children, he said. --More 1138 Local Time 0838 GMT
