in September 2010 that starvation had returned to the nation. North Korean pre-school children are reported to be an average of shorter than South Koreans, which some researchers believe can only be explained by conditions of famine and malnutrition. Most people only eat meat on public holidays, namely Kim Jong-il's birthday, the Day of the Shining Star on February 16 and Kim Il-sung's birthday, the Day of the Sun on April 15. One report by the Tokyo Shimbun in April 2012 claimed that since the death of Kim Jong-il in December 2011, around 20,000 people had starved to death in South Hwanghae Province. Another report by the Japanese Asia Press agency in January 2013 claimed that in North and South Hwanghae provinces more than 10,000 people had died of famine. Other international news agencies have begun circulating stories of cannibalism. On the other hand, the WFP has reported malnutrition and food shortages, but not famine. In 2016, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child reported a steady decline in the infant mortality rate since 2008. An academic analysis in 2016 found that the situation had greatly improved since the 1990s and that North Korea's levels of health and nutrition were on par with other developing countries. In 2017, the analyst Andrei Lankov argued that previous predictions of a return to famine were unfounded, and that the days of starvation had long since passed. A survey in 2017 found that the famine had skewed North Korea's demography, impacting particularly male babies. Women aged 20–24 made up 4% of the population, while men in the same age group made up only 2.5%. Chronic or recurrent malnutrition dropped from 28 percent in 2012 to 19 percent in 2017. In June 2019, after a report made by the United Nations stated that North Korea had experienced the worst harvests in over a decade along with severe food shortages that affected 40% of North Korea's population, South Korea enacted a plan to provide US$8 million worth of food aid to North Korea. The South Korean government's aid to North Korea is widely viewed as having a political agenda of improving inter-Korean relations, despite the South's government insistence on separating the aid from politics. See also Kotjebi Potato production in North Korea Analogous famines Great Chinese Famine Holodomor Shortages in Venezuela General Economy of North Korea History of North Korea Human rights in North Korea