SEOUL - A SOUTH Korean Buddhist group said on Tuesday it has shipped a fresh consignment of food aid for mothers and children in impoverished North Korea.

The shipment worth 380 million won (over S$433,000) is expected to arrive in the North's north-eastern port of Rajin by Thursday, said the Seoul-based Jungto Society.

It will be distributed in Hoeryong, a town in the northernmost province of North Hamkyong, which is especially prone to food shortages.

The organisation said it expects the food aid, including dried seaweed porridge, flour, milk powder, sugar and salt, will be able to reach 2,500 mothers and 6,300 infants and children.

'Hamkyong province usually receives even less outside assistance than other regions because it is at the northeastern tip of the country,' one organiser, Kim Ae-Kyung, told Yonhap news agency.

'We are reaching out to those who are most vulnerable to food shortages in the region.' The Buddhist group delivered equipment worth 150 million won to a hospital in the province early this month. In the past year it sent 1,200 tonnes of flour and 500 tonnes of noodles to the country.

Private aid to the North has continued despite the virtual breakdown of government-to-government relations.

The South this year did not make its customary shipment of hundreds of thousands of tons of rice and fertiliser because the North failed to request the deliveries amid worsening ties.

Two United Nations agencies have predicted that about 40 per cent of North Korea's people - an estimated 8.7 million people - will urgently need food aid because of an expected cereals deficit in coming months.

They said the shortages would hit young children, pregnant and nursing women and the elderly the hardest. -- AFP