Kim Jong Un in a coma? Tabloids report hospitalization in Beijing, no confirmation

The claim goes like this: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un suffered a brain hemorrhage, fell into a coma and was rushed to a hospital in Beijing. So far no official source has confirmed it.

The British tabloid The Sun, the American New York Post and the Indian outlet Economic Times wrote about the coma on October 19. They cited "social media users" and named one of the Beijing hospitals. The Ukrainian outlet tsn.ua retold the same reports more cautiously: it says Kim's condition is "allegedly critical" and that he may have been rushed to China, and it presents this as unconfirmed information.

According to reports in Telegram channels, North Korea responded by publishing photographs of the leader with his family at a clothing exhibition.

The authorities of North Korea and China, as well as independent sources, have not reported either Kim Jong Un's hospitalization or his condition. There is no official confirmation of The Sun's reports.

South Korean diplomats and intelligence sources told the Yonhap agency they had heard nothing that would support the claims of a coma. This too is a statement from parties with their own interest: Seoul watches Pyongyang and is unlikely to be interested in a version in which its neighbor is weak. But there is no confirming information from these sources either.

Kim Jong Un's last public appearance mentioned in the reports dates to October 11: he visited a museum in Pyongyang. North Korean state media published photographs of the visit on October 13. They show the leader together with his wife Ri Sol Ju and his daughter Kim Ju Ae. The exact location of the site was not disclosed.

According to Yonhap, the original source was probably a post on the social network X by Wanjun Xie, a Chinese dissident who lives in the US. In the original he claimed that Kim had died despite being hospitalized in China. There was no mention of a coma; the tabloids added that version later.

Military correspondent Yuri Kotenok said that such reports could have appeared in South Korean sources that specialize in North Korea. According to him, these resources have spread unconfirmed information before.

According to Belarusian non-state outlets, the talk about his health was triggered by a publication from South Korean intelligence. It said that Kim is in a risk group for cardiovascular disease, is extremely obese and smokes heavily. The leader's weight, according to the statement quoted there, exceeds 140 kilograms.

Rumors about the North Korean leader's poor health are not new. In 2020, after Kim disappeared from public view for several months, Western media and social networks wrote about his possible death. Those reports were not confirmed. At the time, experts cited by Belarusian state media speculated that if the leader died, his sister could temporarily head the country.

The result of the check: the claim of a coma and hospitalization in Beijing remains unproven. Behind it stand tabloids citing "social media users" and a post that spoke of death, not a coma. Against it are the absence of statements from Pyongyang and Beijing and the words of South Korean sources. But it cannot be independently refuted either: North Korea does not disclose data on its leader's health, and its publications remain its own testimony.

It is still unknown what official information on Kim Jong Un's health North Korea will publish, if it publishes any at all.