A daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has appeared in public for the first time today in images released by state media. These are images taken during the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test carried out last Friday, to which the young woman appeared accompanying her father.
The state news agency KCNA limited itself to reporting that Kim “supervised in person” the launch “along with his beloved daughter and wife,” North Korean First Lady Ri Sol-ju, without providing further details about the daughter.
Five photos among the twenty snapshots published by KCNA of the rehearsal the day before show a girl clad in a white coat listening to her father while appearing to give instructions to officials around her, contemplating from a distance with Kim the missile in her take-off phase or walking hand in hand with him next to the projectile shuttle before it was launched.
North Korean state media rarely broadcast information about close relatives of the Kim dynasty, which has ruled the country with an iron fist since the 1940s. This daughter of Kim Jong-un is no exception, since the official propaganda had never even acknowledged her existence before.
All information about the offspring of Kim Jong-un, who is believed to be 38 years old, has been ventured by experts with connections within the secretive country.
Many have assured that Kim would have had three children with Ri in 2010, 2012 or 2013 and 2017, without being able to provide much more information about it.
After one of his extravagant visits to North Korea to meet Kim Jong-un, former US basketball player Dennis Rodman said publicly in 2013 that he held “his daughter Ju-ae”, a baby at the time.
It is the only time that someone has named one of the descendants of the North Korean dictator by his first name.
It is unknown if the girl in the photos released today on KCNA is the aforementioned Kim Ju-ae or an older sister.
