Advertisement
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un replaces officials over ‘grave incident’ in coronavirus response
- The North Korean leader told a Politburo meeting that the unspecified lapse ‘poses a huge crisis to the safety of the nation and its people’
- The country has not yet confirmed any Covid-19 cases and shut its borders last January
Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
1
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un replaced several senior officials after a “grave incident” in the country’s efforts to defend itself against the Covid-19 pandemic, state media reported on Wednesday.
Advertisement
Pyongyang closed its borders in January last year to defend itself against coronavirus outbreak that first emerged in neighbouring China and has gone on to sweep the world.
It has not publicly confirmed any cases of the disease at any point, neither in state media nor in the test statistics it has disclosed to the World Health Organization.
But officials had “caused a grave incident that poses a huge crisis to the safety of the nation and its people”, Kim told a Politburo meeting, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
It did not specify any details of what had happened.
Advertisement
Kim added that the “incompetence and irresponsibility of the senior officials are a major factor that hampers the implementation of important tasks”, adding that they were “captivated by selfishness and passivity”.
Advertisement