S. Korea to send 1st food aid to N. Korea in 2 years
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South Korea prepared on Monday to send 5,000 tons of rice to flood victims in North Korea in its first humanitarian rice shipment to its communist neighbour since a conservative, pro-US government took office in Seoul in 2008.
For a decade, South Korea was a major donor of food to North Korea before President Lee Myung-bak halted unconditional assistance following his inauguration in early 2008 with a tough line on Pyongyang.
Lee's government also drastically slashed trade with North Korea after tension spiked over March's deadly sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on Pyongyang.
The two Koreas remain technically at war, since their 1950-53 conflict ended with a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.
Recently, however, signs of a thaw have been emerging on the divided Korean peninsula, with Pyongyang making a series of conciliatory gestures such as releasing South Korean and American detainees and proposing the resumption of stalled joint projects.
South Korea, meanwhile, promised last month to send 10 billion won ($8.5 million) in flood aid to the North. On Monday, a freighter carrying 5,000 tons of rice was to leave the southern Gusan port for the Chinese city of Dandong near the border with North Korea.
Chinese trucks are to deliver those rice to flood victims in the northwestern North Korean city of Sinuiju by mid-November, according to Seoul's Red Cross, which handles the government-financed shipment.
Heavy flooding swamped farmland, houses and public buildings in Sinuiju in August. An estimated 80,000-90,000 people were affected by the flooding, and the 5,000 tons of rice can feed about 100,000 people for 100 days, Red Cross officials say.
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