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Kim Jong Un says pandemic-related "great crisis" has occurred
At a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea on Tuesday, Kim also sacked senior party members, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
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This picture taken on June 29, 2021 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on June 30 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending an enlarged meeting of the 2nd Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee at the 8th congress of the Workers' Party of Korea at the Party Central Committee Headquarters in Pyongyang.
(AFP/KCNA)
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orth Korean leader Kim Jong Un said an unspecified "great crisis" related to the coronavirus pandemic that may jeopardize the safety of the country and its citizens has occurred, state-run media reported Wednesday.
At a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea on Tuesday, Kim also sacked senior party members, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
Following the detection of the virus in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, North Korea, in principle, cut off traffic to and from China and Russia in early 2020.
North Korea claims it has detected no coronavirus infections within its borders, but in July last year KCNA said a person who defected to South Korea a few years ago "illegally" returned to the North Korean border city of Kaesong and is "suspected to have been infected with the vicious virus."
The news agency, however, never reported whether the person was definitively diagnosed as being infected with the COVID-19 virus.
Late last year, North Korea reportedly shut down Hyesan on the border with China and the western city of Nampo, which has the country's biggest port, while banning people from entering Pyongyang from other cities.
Border guards in Hyesan are believed to have been engaged in smuggling with Chinese contacts. Some people, including a local official, appear to have been executed for their alleged role in the smuggling operation.
