world

Updated: Apr 26, 2020 07:17 IST

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is being treated at a hospital which is meant for exclusive use of his family, according to Daily NK, a South Korean internet news outlet specialising in North Korea news.

The Hyang San hospital has long been maintained as special facility to deal with heart-related ailments, Daily NK further reported.

The hospital was built in 1994, after the death of North Korea leader’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, who was in Hyang San (a place about 150 kilometres from capital Pyongyang) at that time. Kim believed that a hospital in the area would have saved him, the news outlet reported.

It also said that there is one more reason to build a hospital away from capital Pyongyang: To keep the leader and his family away from any kind of surveillance.

Daily NK further reported that the doctor who conducted Kim’s surgery is an expert in cardiovascular-related diseases and has even received training abroad. The doctor too is kept under tight security and moves around with his own guard, the news outlet reported.

The medical equipment at the hospital is imported from Germany and Japan, reported Daily NK, which is run mostly by North Korean defectors.

Daily NK had earlier reported thar Kim had undergone a cardiovascular procedure earlier this month triggered by heavy smoking, obesity and fatigue.

CNN also quoted a US official as saying Kim was in “grave danger” after surgery.

Speculation about Kim’s whereabouts started after he apparently skipped an annual visit to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun last Wednesday on the occasion of the 108th birthday of his late grandfather and state founder, Kim Il Sung.

Kim was last seen on April 11 in state media reports about his presiding over a political bureau meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, where he called for “strict national countermeasures to thoroughly check the infiltration of the virus.”