North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s two-week absence has fueled speculation and rumors that he is gravely ill. But he is not the first member of the country's ruling elite to disappear from public view. KimTongHyung looks at some past notable absences.
FILE - In this May 21, 1987, file photo, then North Korean President Kim Il Sung, center, and then Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang make their way through a crowd of well-wishers at the train station in Beijing.
A look at past cases of missing North Korean officials and when reports about the demise of leaders were premature:Before his death in 1994, there was arguably no person South Koreans hated and feared more than North Korea’s state founder Kim Il Sung.
The reports began circulating on Nov. 16 when the Chosun Ilbo published a short story by its Tokyo correspondent who reported rumors in Japan that Kim Il Sung had died. Things took a strange turn the next day when South Korea’s military spokesman announced that the North Koreans used loudspeakers on the mine-strewn border to announce that he was shot to death.
Chosun, South Korea’s biggest newspaper by circulation, never published a correction. But it formally apologized over the story last month while marking the 100th anniversary of its founding. Chatter about Kim Jong Il’s death following his 2008 stroke became so frequent that it prompted South Korea’s financial regulator in 2009 to investigate whether the rumors were being deliberately spread to manipulate stock markets.
In 2014, Kim vanished from the public eye for nearly six weeks before reappearing with a cane. South Korea’s spy agency said he had a cyst removed from his ankle.
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