It will be a good day when the North Korean people can move on beyond this constant cycle of misery for the pleasure of one person.

The U.N. food agency has warned that millions of North Koreans could face starvation, but a South Korean official said Thursday that Seoul has not decided whether to respond to a request for food aid to the communist country.

Around 2.7 million people on North Korea’s west coast will run out of food in October, the World Food Program said in a report released on Tuesday.

North Korea has relied on aid to help feed its 23 million people since natural disasters and mismanagement devastated its centrally controlled economy in the mid-1990s. Famine is believed to have killed 2 million people. The country’s food shortage has worsened this year following devastating floods in 2007.

The WFP also said the food shortages have especially affected urban households in areas with low industrial activity due to higher food prices, reductions in public food rations and lower employment.

The food shortage warning comes as the North has ratcheted up its hostile rhetoric against South Korea and its president amid fraying ties.