SEOUL, April 4 (Yonhap) -- South Korea approved additional humanitarian aid to North Korea to help ease its chronic food shortages despite lingering political tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula, an official said Monday.

   The decision marks the third instance of civic aid toward North Korean children since November when Pyongyang's artillery attack on a frontline South Korean island killed four South Koreans.

   The latest aid by two civic groups includes 176 million won (US$161,800) worth of powdered milk and porridge for North Koreans in orphanages in northeastern North Korea, Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said at a briefing.

   He said the aid packages are scheduled to be delivered to the North later this month by land and sea routes.

   The aid comes more than a week after the World Food Program and two other U.N. agencies called for 434,000 tons of outside food aid to support North Korea's most vulnerable groups, which include children, pregnant women and nursing mothers.

   North Korea has relied heavily on international handouts since a massive famine hit in the mid-1990s. International assistance has dropped significantly in the wake of a series of nuclear and missile tests that Pyongyang has conducted in defiance of warnings.

   South Korea has provided little food assistance to North Korea since a conservative government took power in Seoul in 2008 and tied cross-border exchanges to denuclearization efforts by Pyongyang.

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