South Korea approved sending more shipments of humanitarian aid to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Seoul's Ministry of Unification said on Tuesday.

An additional four shipments of humanitarian assistance, some 300 million won (about 245,000 U.S. dollars) worth of bread, medicine and other items, will be delivered to hospitals and children's facilities in four different cities in the DPRK, according to the ministry.

The approvement came after Seoul decided to send two shipments of baby food including powered milk to the DPRK, the first since Seoul announced to take punitive measures against the DPRK for the sinking of the warship Cheonan.

South Korea last month unveiled a series of punitive measures against the DPRK over the Cheonan incident, including downsizing the operation of the Kaesong park, suspending all inter-Korean cooperation apart from the Kaesong program, and relaunching psychological warfare against Pyongyang, after it made public the outcome of investigations over the Cheonan incident made by a multinational team, which said the warship that went into waters near a tense maritime border with the DPRK in March was torpedoed by the DPRK.

However, the government said it will continue providing pure humanitarian aid for vulnerable groups of people in the DPRK such as infants and young children.