North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will not visit the regions devastated by the August floods because he reportedly getting assassinated.
Forty days passed since severe floods destroyed much of Korea’s North Hamgyong Province and other nearby regions. Hundreds of people were killed or injured, and hundreds of thousands more have been displaced. Yet, Kim Jong Un refuses to visit, citing “personal safety issues,” reports Daily NK.
The “Supreme Leader” is afraid to venture too far outside of Pyongyang. Residents of the capital tend to be much more loyal to Kim than individuals in the impoverished areas in some of the country’s outlying regions, places where the number of people dissatisfied with the Kim regime appears to be growing rapidly.
He won’t even travel to his grandmother’s birthplace in Hoeryong, a town in North Hamgyong Province, reports NK News.
Kim visited the Razon District in North Hamgyong Province 20 days after Typhoon Goni hit last year. As the young dictator has yet to visit, many North Koreans negatively impacted by the floods are beginning to express their discontent.
During the recent floods, a number of border guards were killed and military outposts and compounds destroyed, and many guns and bullets were lost to the floods. Their whereabouts are currently unknown, which is disconcerting for North Korean authorities. Were weapons to fall into the hands of disgruntled citizens, it could potentially produce undesirable results for the oppressive authoritarian regimes.
“Hundreds of weapons including rifles and ammunition were buried or lost during the flood,” a source in North Hamgyong Province told reporters. “Recently, the regime mobilized soldiers to search for weapons along the river, stating that the recovery of weapons and ammunition is of the utmost importance and connected to the personal safety of Kim Jong Un,” the inside source revealed.
The International Red Cross estimates that there are around 600,000 people in need of assistance because of the flood, yet the North Korean government is putting emphasis on crowd control and state security, sometimes overlooking the immediate needs of the North Korean citizenry as winter quickly descends on the country.
“The military officials are only focusing on finding missing weapons and ammunition. They have mobilized shock troops and construction units for the weapons search, announcing that ‘leadership protection’ is the priority,” the Daily NK’s inside sources explained. Locals are reportedly criticizing the government for searching for bullets rather than looking for bodies and helping those in need.
The state is sending tens of thousands of troops to flood-damaged areas. While they are presented to the public as “rescue workers,” they are often soldiers tasked with combating defections and possible uprisings.
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