An international development and support group has estimated that more than ten million people in North Korea need external humanitarian assistance amid serious food shortage.

The assessment was included in the report published by the U.K.-based Development Initiatives on June 20 titled “Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2023.”

It said that since 2019, North Korea, Yemen, Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan and Venezuela have consistently had more than ten million people requiring assistance.

The number of North Koreans in need was estimated at ten-point-four million last year, the world’s 14th largest. 

The country was designated as a "P3+" nation for acute food insecurity in the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.