A Canadian aid group has provided soy milk to around 80,000 children in North Korea as part of efforts to ease malnutrition among kids in the impoverished state, its website showed Thursday.

First Steps Health Society said that 100 tons of soybeans have recently been shipped to "eight of our soymilk partner sites in three provinces, reaching more than 80,000 children with much needed soymilk at exactly the right time."

The recently-delivered soybeans are part of 400 tons the group promised to provide to the North last year. They had been held up in storage due to the North's border closure to prevent the outbreak of the coronavirus, it said.

The aid group also said that it sent an additional 40 tons of soybeans from Canada and 7.2 million sachets of micronutrient Sprinkles from Malaysia, which have arrived in Dalian, China and are waiting for shipment to the North's western port of Nampo.

North Korean kids are believed to be suffering from chronic malnutrition due to a lack of food, which has apparently been aggravated by poor harvests and restrictions on imports due to sanctions.

The aid group received a sanctions waiver from the United Nations in March last year to be able to bring in soy milk processing systems to the North. (Yonhap)