A UN envoy on Monday warned of sharply reduced food aid shipments to North Korea as a result of its missile and nuclear tests even though the Stalinist state still faces a 'critical shortage'.
Vitit Muntarbhorn, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, also urged Pyongyang to abide by its human rights obligations and to specifically stop punishing North Korean refugees repatriated by neighbouring asylum countries.
"There is a critical food shortage also compounded by disastrous floods in July and August," he told a news conference here, adding that the crisis was further complicated by the North Korean missile and nuclear tests which triggered sanctions by the UN Security Council.
He described Pyongyang's missile tests last July and its first nuclear test on October 9 as "a serious waste" of resources.
"The resources spent on arms would have been better spent satisfying the food security" of North Koreans, Muntarbhorn, a Thai law professor, added.
He appealed to bilateral food donors to resume their aid on the basis of "no access, no food", meaning that the aid would be conditional on guaranteed access to North Korean target groups such as women and children, and full accountability.
He recalled that the UN World Food Program (WFP), the lead UN agency providing food aid to starving North Koreans, had its wings clipped last year when Pyongyang ordered it to change its emergency relief program to a development scheme.
Last month, WFP said it had received just eight percent of the 102 million dollars it needs to provide 150,000 tonnes of food over the next two years.
Around one million North Koreans died in the 1990s because of food shortages, experts believe.
The New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch has warned that another food crisis is looming after the flooding damaged harvests.
Muntarbhorn also described the human rights situation in North Korea as "grim", particularly for special groups such as the disabled, women, children and the elderly.
"I found very distressing that these groups are impacted upon negatively," he noted.
In a report released last Friday, he accused North Korean authorities of practising "merciless discrimination against handicapped persons by setting up collective camps for them where they are designated according to their physical deformity or disability."
The report also charged that women in North Korea were being subjected to violence as well as "human trafficking and sexual exploitation."
The envoy also focused on the root causes pushing North Koreans to flee abroad, citing political repression and widespread hunger.
He said many dissidents, economic refugees and hungry North Koreans were leaving the country without exit visas and were being subjected to punishment if they were repatriated by neighbouring countries.
"No punishment upon return would help solve problem," Muntarbhorn said.
He also urged North Korea to fully abide by human rights treaties to which it is a party, to liberalise its laws, policies and practices to ensure respect for a broad range of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights.
He also raised the issue of foreigners, mostly Japanese but also South Koreans and Thais, who have been kidnapped by North Korean agents.