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North Korea: Kim Jong-Un has disappeared ... from speed cameras

2020-04-26T15:12:03.724Z


His plane is in Pyongyang, his private train has been seen in the east of the country, media believe knowledge is recovering in the west ... The flo


Kim Jong-Un's private life is one of the regime's best kept secrets. Where is the North Korean dictator and in what state of health? In the midst of a coronavirus epidemic, Pyongyang maintains the vagueness about his situation, while rumors about a recent heart operation continue to fuel diplomatic speculation.

Friday, the Reuters news agency revealed that China had sent a team of experts, including medical, to the head of state, who has not given life since a political meeting and a public appearance on 11 April. His absence from official photos of the annual celebrations of April 15, the birth day of the regime's founder, his grandfather Kim Il Sung, confuses specialists in North Korea.

The most recent photograph of Kim Jong Un from April 10. He doesn't look great (even as photographed by state media.) Https://t.co/Ih3l3TjikF pic.twitter.com/i6SyzuxWah

- Barbara Demick (@BarbaraDemick) April 25, 2020

If Kim Jong-Un is, like his predecessors, regularly announced as dead or close to being, several South Korean sources nevertheless affirm to Reuters that he could soon reappear.

Recovering ?

In addition to its absence from the media, another factor is fueling speculation: according to the American reference site on the country, 38North, a train belonging to the dictator has been spotted in a seaside resort in eastern North Korea.

Satellite imagery indicates that Kim Jong Un was likely at his Wonsan compound earlier this week. https://t.co/do75evMgcY #KimJongUn

- 38 North (@ 38NorthNK) April 25, 2020

Satellite images would attest to his presence there on April 21 and 23, at a station belonging to the family of the thirty-something leader. According to the site, if this presence does not prove "nothing as to the whereabouts of the North Korean leader nor does it indicate anything about his state of health", it "accredits the information according to which Mr. Kim is would find in an elite area on the east coast. "

This week, the Daily NK media, fed largely by defected North Koreans, believed that the North Korean leader had been operated on in April for cardiovascular problems. He also argued, citing an anonymous North Korean source, that Kim Jong-Un, whose exact age is unknown, should have had this operation urgently. His source evokes health problems related to "excessive smoking, obesity and fatigue". According to NK, the leader is currently recovering in a villa in the province of North Pyongan, in the west of the country. Or the opposite of where the train was seen.

Six weeks' disappearance in 2014

Conflicting information, reported by the South Korean channel SBS on Thursday, said that a stay of the North Korean leader in Wonsan in the east of the country. She added that the South Korean army was monitoring the location of the North Korean train, which had been seen in this coastal city, while its plane - which it often uses to go to Wonsan - was at Pyongyang. The South Korean authorities, however, downplayed this information.

On April 21, the South Korean news agency Yonhap, which quoted an unnamed senior South Korean official, said that reports of Kim Jong-Un's serious health were "not true." Without providing any evidence, Thursday, US President Donald Trump, who maintains stormy but privileged relations with his North Korean counterpart also believed that the information on a failing state of health was "wrong".

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Already in 2014, a long period of media absence from Kim Jong-Un had frightened the actors of the diplomatic scene. He reappeared after six weeks with a cane. According to the South Korean media Yonhap, who then quoted members of the South Korean intelligence services Kim Jong-Un was then operated on to be removed ... a cyst at the ankle.

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2020-04-26

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