A multi-agency report from the UN released on Monday says nearly half of North Korea's total population suffers from malnutrition.

According to Radio Free Asia(RFA) on Tuesday, the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019 report said that 47-point-eight percent of North Korea’s population, or 12-point-two million people, were undernourished in the years 2016 to 2018.

The number is a sharp rise from the 2004-2006 period when the comparable figure stood at 35-point-four percent, and also up from 43 percent reported in the 2015-2017 period.

RFA said only three countries -- the Central African Republic, Zimbabwe and Haiti -- reported higher malnutrition rates than North Korea in the latest report.