North Korea’s average rain and snowfall this year fell to the lowest level in 37 years, Pyongyang’s state media said Wednesday, just days after the UN expressed “grave concerns” about food shortages.
The isolated, impoverished nation — which is under several sets of sanctions over its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programmes — has long struggled to feed itself and suffers chronic food shortages.
A number of international organisations, including the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), have said minor disasters, including drought, can significantly worsen and hamper food production in the country.
From January to early May this year, North Korea only received 54.4 millimetres of rain or snow, the smallest amount since the same period in 1982, the state-run KCNA said, describing the situation as “an extreme drought”.
Last month, the WFP and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said in a joint report that North Korea’s crop output last year hit…
