North Koreans desperate

Canadian Foodgrains Bank, World Vision Canada and other groups have already shipped grain, high-protein food and medical supplies, but much more help is needed, they report.

"I saw children with very thin arms and legs and listless eyes, seemingly too weak to stand," says William Janzen, Mennonite Central Committee's Ottawa director. Janzen, who represented MCC on a Canadian Foodgrains Bank delegation in July, visited homes where daily food rations have been reduced to a handful of rice (about 2 ounces).

Estimates indicate the rate of malnutrition among children in North Korea has jumped from 16 to 37.6 percent over the past year.

The famine has its roots in poor agricultural practices, an economic downturn during the early 1990s and a series of floods and hailstorms in recent years that destroyed thousands of hectares of crops and uprooted half a million people.