$922,000 worth of soybean oil and food products sent to NK: ministry

Sacks of rice prepared by South Korean government to send to North Korea for flood victims are loaded at the Port of Gunsan in North Jeolla Province in this 2010 file photo. Yonhap

Three South Korean civic groups have sent nutritional goods worth 1.2 billion won ($922,000) to North Korea since September last year under the government's aid program designed to help vulnerable North Koreans, Seoul's unification ministry said Thursday.

Two shipments of such goods were delivered to the North after the Yoon Suk-yeol administration took office in May, according to the ministry in charge of inter-Korean ties. All of the goods are known to be soybean oil.

"Like previous governments, the Yoon administration has a consistent principle that it will seek to offer humanitarian aid (to the North) regardless of political and military situations," a ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

The aid program, which was launched in September 2021 and ran through Dec. 10, called for the ministry to provide 10 billion won to civic groups to support their bid to offer nutritional aid to the North amid chronic food shortages and the COVID-19 pandemic. (Yonhap)