The government approved two local charity groups' plans to send humanitarian aid to North Korea, the unification minister said Friday.

The approval allows the aid groups including the Association of People Sharing Love to ship food or medical goods to underprivileged people in the North.

Information on the specific items and the size of the assistance was not released.

The latest approval of humanitarian aid to the country marks the first of its kind since the North strongly protested Seoul's joint military drills with Washington held in late August.

The North has also reportedly accepted the planned aid shipment despite its general boycott of even humanitarian assistance from Seoul this year amid frosty relations with the South.

"The North has not been willing to accept humanitarian aid (from the South) lately but it was taking aid from South Korean groups that tend to help the county somewhat quietly," a government official said.

President Park Geun-hye and the unification ministry have repeatedly expressed their intention to continue humanitarian assistance to the North in spite of sanctions on the country imposed after its deadly torpedoing of a South Korean Navy ship in 2010. (Yonhap)