Truckloads of Chinese rice enter N Korea

S Korea: Long convoys of Chinese lorries laden with rice were seen entering North Korea after Beijing reportedly agreed to provide major food aid to Pyongyang's new regime, a South Korean activist said Tuesday.

Thousands of lorries delivered rice to the hungry North starting on January 9, said Do Hee-Yoon of the Seoul-based Citizens’ Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees.

On Monday a Japanese newspaper said Chinese leaders had agreed on the aid at a meeting on December 20, the day after North Korea announced the death of its longtime leader Kim Jong-Il.

The deliveries lasted about 10 days before the Lunar New Year holiday on January 23, Do told AFP.

As evidence, he presented pictures taken near the customs office in the northeastern town of Tumen on the Chinese side of the border on January 12.

One photo, taken from inside a taxi, showed trucks stacked with rice bagslined up on both sides of the road.

“Trucks laden with rice sacks were seen crossing the border into the North at various places including Tumen, Dandong and Jian,” Do said.

“The delivery of rice aid was apparently completed within a pretty short timespan,” he said, adding it was quite rare for China to provide the North with such massive food aid at one go. On Monday China’s foreign ministry urged the international community to give its impoverished neighbour more humanitarian aid.

It did not comment on a report by Japan’s Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, that China had decided to donate 500,000 tonnes of food and 250,000 tonnes of crude oil. AFP