Roughly one in three North Korean children are suffering from stunted growth caused by malnutrition, a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) showed Thursday.

The organization under the United Nations said in its 2013 food and agriculture report that the North's figures for slower-than-normal-growth stood at 32.4 percent, which was higher than the average for other Asian countries, excluding Japan.

Numbers for the whole of Asia stood at 26.8 percent.

The latest findings showed stunted growth numbers for North Korean children being roughly on par with the Philippines, Myanmar and Indonesia, although much higher than China, with reported figures of just 9.4 percent.

The FAO added that the percentage of North Korean kids suffering from anemia stood at 31.7 percent, twice as high as 16.5 percent tallied for South Korea. It said 27.5 percent of kids in the communist country were affected by vitamin A deficiency. (Yonhap News)