Is Kim Jong-un dead? Conflicting rumours circulate as North Korean dictator ‘goes missing’
KIM Jong-un is believed to have undergone heart surgery on April 12 after China dispatched a team of senior doctors to treat the North Korean dictator. Conflicting accounts have appeared online about the health of the tyrant after he vanished from public view over two weeks ago. Is Kim Jong-Un dead? Kim has not been […]
KIM Jong-un is believed to have undergone heart surgery on April 12 after China dispatched a team of senior doctors to treat the North Korean dictator.
Conflicting accounts have appeared online about the health of the tyrant after he vanished from public view over two weeks ago.
Is Kim Jong-Un dead?
Kim has not been seen in public for over two weeks.
He failed to appear at an important celebration to mark the birthday of Kim Il-sung, his grandfather and the founder of the country which sparked speculation around his health.
He had last been spotted four days prior at a meeting with other government officials.
The dictator is overweight and is said to smoke and drink heavily.
His predecessors in the dynasty, his father, Kim Jong-il, and his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, both died from heart problems.
Some reports, attributed to senior party sources in Beijing, said Kim had died after the Chinese medical team arrived too late to save him following failed heart surgery on April 12. While other reports suggest he is not dead after an operation to insert a stent went wrong because the surgeon’s hands were shaking.
Another report from a South Korean media outlet reported US spy planes had tracked the dictator and his entourage down to his beachside palace in Wonsan on the east coast of his kingdom.
Satellite photos believed to show the train likely belonging to Kim Jong-un at the resort have been review by a US-based think tank.
President Moon Jae-in’s foreign policy advisor Chung-in Moon said: “Our government position is firm Kim Jong-un is alive and well.
“He has been staying in the Wonsan area since April 13. No suspicious movements have so far been detected.”
Who is Kim Jong-un?
Kim is the second child of his predecessor as Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-il and his wife Kim Yong-hui.
North Korean authorities have stated that his birth date is January 8, 1982, but South Korean intelligence officials believe the actual date is a year later.
Chicago Bulls legend Dennis Rodman, who is a friend of the dictator, said he was born on January 8, 1983.
But records at the Swiss school he attended say he was born on July 5, 1984, making him 35 years old.
The North Korea dictator stands at 5ft7in (1.7m).
The tyrant earned the school nickname “the little dictator” for his bullying ways after being assured by his parents he was a demigod.
Kim would reportedly kick and spit at other pupils too terrified to question his appalling behaviour.
Kim Jong-il favoured Kim over his older brothers as he allegedly had what was needed to run the rogue state.
As a child he had a team of dedicated staff on call 24/7 and playrooms with “more toys than any European store”
The gardens at his family home were full of cages containing monkeys and bears for his entertainment.
A personal chef was even hired to be his friend.
Kim spent his early years alone at his family’s beach home and in their luxury compounds in Pyongyang.
He was spoilt with his own supercars at the age of seven and was even given a Colt .45 pistol aged 11.
Rumours suggest he was so good with a gun he could hit a lightbulb from 100 metres.
In Anna Fifield’s biography of the North Korean leader – ‘The Great Successor: The Secret Rise And Rule of Kim Jong Un’ – she wrote from a very young age, Kim was groomed for leadership.
She said: “The boy grew up thinking he was special.”
His eighth birthday party was not attended by other children, but involved Kim having high level North Korean officials offering him bouquets of flowers.
Kim would allegedly wear military gear and order adults around.
The book claimed in one incident, he avoided a Japanese chef because he was not from North Korea.
Kenji Fujimoto met the small dictator, who was wearing a military uniform despite aged six, and claimed Kim refused to shake his hand while glaring at him with “sharp eyes”.
The future tyrant was sent to live in Switzerland when he was 12, with a “pudding bowl haircut”.
He attended the Liebefeld Steinhölzli school – an English language institute near the city of Bern.
He was given a fake name, Pak-un, and lived with his aunt Ko Yong-suk and her husband who pretended to be his parents.
Fifield’s biography claims the dictator struggled academically, was very competitive and had a bad temper.
He would kick other students in the shins and spit at them when they spoke German because it was a language he struggled with.
Kim would play basketball in a Chicago Bulls jersey while “trash talking” opponents.
His old mates at the Liebefeld-Steinhölzli public school say Kim was a “funny, popular boy,” however.
He used a fake Brazilian passport to travel around Europe while enjoying holidays in the south of France, Euro Disney in Paris and Italy.
Who are Kim Jong-un’s family?
Kim Jong-un has two full siblings, an older brother named Kim Jong-chul and a younger sister named Kim Yo-jong.
He had an older half-brother named Kim Jong-nam who was assassinated in Kuala Lumpur Airport after being attacked by two women.
Kim Yo-jong is in the director of North Korea’s Propaganda and Agitation Department and is an alternate member of the Politburo, and travelled to Pyeonchang, South Korea, for the Winter Olympics in 2018.
On July 25, 2012, North Korean state media reported for the first time that Kim Jong-un was married to Ri Sol-ju.
Despot Kim has fathered three children with his wife – who is believed to have once visited South Korea as part of a cheerleading squad.
According to previous intelligence reports, Ri married the dictator in 2009 and gave birth to their first child the following year, with their second born in 2013.
Former NBA star Rodman, following his trip to the country in 2013, has been the only source of information about the couple’s second child – a baby girl named Kim Ju-ae.
Saying that he had held Kim’s daughter in his arms, Rodman described the North Korean leader as “a good dad” who has “a good family”.
South Korean intelligence reports have described Ri as coming from an ordinary family, with her father an academic and her mother a doctor.
First Lady Ri reportedly had the couple’s third child in February 2017 after vanishing from public view throughout most of her pregnancy.
When did he become North Korea’s Supreme Leader?
His half brother had been favourite to succeed Kim Jong-il before he fell out of favour after a failed attempt to visit Tokyo Disneyland on a fake passport.
He died on December 17, 2011, and it had been initially rumoured his brother in law Jang Song-thaek would act as regent as Kim Jong-un was too young.
Kim Jong-un was formally announced as his father’s successor on Boxing Day 2011.
Two years later Jang Song-thaek, Jong-un’s uncle, would be executed in one of Kim’s first purges.
Despite being Supreme Leader of the reclusive state he is technically not the head of it.
That honour belongs to his grandfather Kim Il-sung who was declared the “Eternal President” on his death in 1994.
Kim is said to have executed five aides after his summit with Donald Trump ended without a deal.
He is thought to have ordered a firing squad to kill Kim Hyok-Chol and four of his underlings amid claims they sold information to the Americans.
Kim’s bloody revenge on his Vietnam summit negotiating team was revealed by South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper in May 2019.
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