North Korea has provided foreign aid for the first time since 2005. The United Nations has received a donation of 300,000 dollars from the Humanitarian Fund for Myanmar.
The fund belongs to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which has called for money to be paid for the Southeast Asian country where protests have been brutally suppressed since a military coup in early February and whose economy has been badly hit by the upheaval.
The last time Stalinist-ruled North Korea stepped in with foreign aid was in 2005, when it donated $150,000 to countries affected by the December 2004 tsunami.
North Korea itself could use some help, according to observers. The isolated dictatorship is suffering from shortages due to foreign sanctions, natural phenomena and the corona pandemic. The closure of the border with China due to the coronavirus has deprived North Korea of basic necessities such as food, fuel and fertilizer.
Dictator Kim Jong-un publicly acknowledged on Wednesday that there are food shortages in the country due to corona and a typhoon that caused flooding.