|
Aid to North well-distributed: CaritasChurch officials fear too restrictive monitoring could put North off
A returning humanitarian aid monitoring delegation has returned from North Korea, where they say food delivered last month has been well-distributed.
Fr. Simeon Lee Jong-keon, executive director of Caritas Corea, and Fr Baptist John Kim Hun-il, along with three other personnel visited North Korea from August 10 to 13 to administer the delivery of 100 tons of flour.
The team oversaw distribution of the aid at one hospital and one of 18 day-care centers in Kangnam-gun county, Hwanghaebuk-do province, where Caritas Corea International sent 100 tons of flour on July 28.
Father Kim, executive secretary of the Subcommittee for Aid to North Korea under the Korean Bishops’ Conference’s Committee for Reconciliation, said more aid was urgently needed in the North and that monitoring needed to be more focused in some areas.
South Korea has been reluctant to send government-level aid north despite the recent lifting of a ban on such aid following Pyongyang’s attack last year of Yeonpyeong island, which killed 50.
Fr. Kim said that transparency in the distribution of aid has been a major concern for South Korea and the international community, which fears that goods would be given to the army instead of those in need.
He added that North Korean officials accepted the demand for monitoring for the most recent aid distribution but have complained that the process was too strict. The Unification Ministry gave its approval for the Caritas aid but required the submission of video clips and documentation of the aid distributed. However, officials in the North refused to allow such documentation.
Fr. Kim said he was worried that if the government had made the monitoring requirement too restrictive, officials in the North would be more reluctant to receive additional aid.
North Korea has repeatedly refused requirements by the international community that aid agencies directly distribute the items they send to individual recipients.
|
|