Kim Jong Un might be trying to prevent getting exposed to the coronavirus, a top official from South Korea revealed on Tuesday as the North Korean leader's absence has sparked rumors that he may be very sick.
While he has kept a very low profile in the past for long periods, many questioned if something was badly wrong because he hadn't appeared at a historically important holiday in the country lately.
Yet South Korean unification minister Kim Yeon-chul figured out that in reaction to the pandemic, many typical holiday activities had been postponed and that Kim's absence in that sense was not "especially odd."
Paranoia about the ongoing global crisis could have been keeping Kim out of the public eye, U.S. sources disclosed Tuesday, after intense speculation and worries as to his actual whereabouts and physical condition.
"It is true that Kim did not attend the anniversary for the first time since he came to power," Yeon-chul said. However, with regard to Kim Il Sung's birthday this year, other anniversary events, including gatherings, banquets and national meetings, had been called off because of the coronavirus concerns, he explained.
The North Korean affair minister also stated that there were at least two occasions since middle of January when Kim kept himself away from public view for almost 20 days.
South Korean officials have stressed that they have not observed any suspicious movements in the reclusive North and warned against rumors that Kim may be very ill.
Meanwhile, an activist and defector from North Korea, Park Yeon-mi, claims her source disclosed Kim is not dead, ill, or in coma. The North's supreme leader is reportedly just hiding, and scared of a possible infection from Covid-19, Joseph Young of CCN reported.
Park escaped North Korea in 2007 and settled in the neighboring South Korea in 2009. The activist, who comes from a politically-active family, has released insights into the secretive nation in the past 10 years, Young added.
One of the biggest "guessing games" surrounding the hermit state in the past few months has been reports that there is not a single coronavirus case in the country.
Early this month, Pak Myong-su, chief of an important agency in North Korea's Central Emergency Anti-epidemic Headquarters, revealed following several inspections and isolations were conducted, the authorities found out that not one single person had contracted the virus in the entire nations, Young wrote.
As this developed, a key source with US intelligence divulged that trustworthy reports to the federal government indicated the reason Kim's special train had been detected by satellite near a presidential retreat at Wonsan last week was that the North Korean leader had been staying there to avoid being infected with the coronavirus.
