SEOUL: The international community should not punish the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) for its claimed nuclear test by suspending emergency food aid, a leading human rights group said yesterday.

Separately, the Republic of Korea (ROK) has delayed a shipment of emergency aid to the DPRK following the nation's nuclear test, but has not yet decided to halt all relief deliveries, a government official said yesterday. However, private groups went ahead with aid deliveries.

The world "must distinguish between the government and ordinary citizens," Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement from London. "Further restraints on food aid will only make ordinary people in the DPRK suffer more."

Food shortages have beset the DPRK since the 1990s following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, its main aid provider, and fallout from natural disasters such as floods and outdated farming methods.

Human Rights Watch also said there are signs the country is facing another food crisis. The DPRK also suffered flooding after heavy rains in July, causing massive crop damage.

"The DPRK's nuclear weapons programme can have devastating security implications in the region, but suspending food aid could be lethal for ordinary people the DPRK," Richardson said.

The ROK had planned to send 4,000 tons of cement to the DPRK on Tuesday as part of an emergency aid package it pledged after the DPRK suffered the heavy floods in mid-July.

That aid shipment never departed on Tuesday, a Unification Ministry official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. However, he said there has been no decision yet on whether to halt all deliveries.

However, the ROK's YMCA said it shipped 2,000 bicycles to the DPRK yesterday worth US$209,000, the second shipment since last year. The group plans to ship 6,000 more bikes in the next three years.

ROK's Yonhap news agency said other civic groups also sent two ambulances, blankets and construction equipment.

Seoul suspended regular government humanitarian aid in July after the DPRK launched a series of missiles against international objections. But the ROK agreed to send emergency aid to cope with the floods.

The disaster is believed to have caused losses of up to 100,000 tons of the DPRK's normal annual production of 4 million tons of food, according to the World Food Programme.

The UN food agency said last month that it would run out of food supplies for the DPRK in two months due to a lack of donations for its operations there.

(China Daily 10/12/2006 page7)