More than 300,000 North Korean children under the age of five suffer from stunted growth due to chronic malnutrition, according to a new multiagency report released on Tuesday — a crisis that may be worsening due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In that age group, roughly 18% of children suffered from “stunting” (or impaired growth) in 2020, according to estimates from UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank.

This means that the percentage of stunted children dropped about 8 percentage points from 2012. However, the report is “almost entirely” based on data recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic, which