North Korea’s Kim Jong-un contracted Covid during country’s outbreak, says sister

Kim has vowed ‘deadly retaliation’ against South Korea for allegedly spreading virus in North

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was “seriously ill with a high fever” during the country’s Covid outbreak, his sister has said in what appears to be the first acknowledgement that he had contracted the infection.

The secretive country has never confirmed how many people caught Covid-19 since confirming its outbreak in May. Instead, Pyongyang has only reported cases of fever and deaths due to it.

Kim Yo-jong, Mr Kim’s sister and a senior official in his regime, said: “Even though he was seriously ill with a high fever, he could not lie down for a moment thinking about the people he had to take care of until the end in the face of the anti-epidemic war.”

The statement came as Mr Kim declared victory over Covid-19 and lifted maximum anti-epidemic measures imposed in May.

Making his declaration speech on Wednesday with thousands of maskless officials sitting indoors, the North Korean leader vowed a “deadly retaliation” against South Korea, which he blamed for spreading the virus to the North.

Mr Kim praised the “indomitable tenacity” of North Koreans and urged them to maintain a “steel-strong anti-epidemic barrier and intensifying the anti-epidemic work until the end of the global health crisis”, state media KCNA reported.

He said it is a “miracle” that North Korea controlled the virus with just 7 deaths.

Ms Kim, while speaking about her brother’s fever, did not elaborate on the symptoms or duration of illness.

She lashed out at the South Korean leadership and blamed it for allegedly spreading Covid into the North by sending propaganda leaflets across the border. South Korean activists frequently float balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets, at times along with food, medicine, money and other items, into the North.

Ms Kim criticised South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol for seeking to lift a 2020 ban on the leaflet campaigns, calling the South an “invariable principal enemy”.

“We can no longer overlook the uninterrupted influx of rubbish from South Korea,” she said, threatening to “wipe out” Seoul’s authorities. “Our countermeasure must be a deadly retaliatory one.”

However, South Korea‘s unification ministry, which handles relations with the North, has refuted the allegations as “groundless claims” and called them “rude and threatening remarks”.

According to KCNA, North Korea has recorded 4.8 million infections since late April and only 74 deaths. If true, these numbers would take the North’s Covid fatality rate to 0.002 per cent, the lowest in the world.

But the World Health Organisation and medical experts have cast doubts on NorthKorea’s assertions.

“Whatever the truth behind the numbers, this is the story being told to the North Korean citizens. And right now the numbers are telling them that the epidemic is over,” said Martyn Williams, a researcher with the US-based 38 North Project.

Like other countries, North Korea was likely balancing the need for control with public frustration with restrictions, he said.

“As of Wednesday evening, state TV was still showing 100% mask wearing in public activities but the longer cases remain at zero, I think the greater the public will question the continued limitations on their lives,” Mr Williams said.

Analysts have also said the declaration of victory over Covid could be propaganda to clear the way for North Korea’s first nuclear weapon test since 2017, and to restart trade by sending a message to China.

The country, which has the world’s more fragile health care system with few intensive care units and no Covid treatment drugs or vaccines, did not roll out a Covid vaccination programme. It also denied help from other countries and the WHO, relying only on lockdowns, and homegrown- or self-treatment.