Kim Yo Jong made another reappearance after two-months gap while her brother praised government’s efforts to recover the southeast region suffered from flooding, KCNA said.
Over two months, the North Korean leader’s sister preferred to keep the low-key profile. She went missing from the public eye for several long periods as rumours mounted over her brother’s health problem.
When Kim disappeared from the public eye, his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, was anointed with extraordinary new powers by the international press before she disappeared for more than two months herself.
On October 2nd, the North Korean leader inspected recovery efforts in a flooded village, his latest visit to areas damaged by recent typhoons. The same day, his sister reappeared in public for the first time in about two months, state media said on Friday.
Kim Jong-Un praised the speed of reconstruction work in Kimhwa County in the country’s region during the visit with Kim Yo Jong. For the country, this year has been one of the unprecedented hardships.
Summer storms and floods have hit North Korea hard, destroying thousands of homes and raising concerns of a worsening of the country’s chronic food shortages.
While praising the recovery, the national leader said he “felt regretful” that new houses in the area were of a “monotonous” design. Earlier, state media had called the cookie-cutter houses a model of the “socialist fairyland”, underlining the government’s recovery efforts after thousands of homes were destroyed by floods.
Kim’s sister became prominent with her harsh rhetoric against South Korea
The younger Kim, considered the de facto second in command, is believed to be in her early 30s and is the leader’s only close relative with a public role in politics. She became prominent with her harsh rhetoric against South Korea.
Kim’s comments were the latest official criticism in the tightly controlled country, where socialist glorification in the norm.
In recent weeks state media said Pyongyang had discovered “faults” in its efforts to battle COVID-19, and Kim offered a rare apology for North Korea’s killing a South Korean official in waters off the west coast of the peninsula.
On Friday, the ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun featured Kim’s tour, showing lines of houses with red roofs and beige and white walls.
Kim said that although speed was important, he wished “artistic harmony with the surrounding environment and diversity had been appropriately combined”.
