North Korean Warship Sinking Detailed In Rare Admission
A North Korean warship’s sinking in October was reported recently by state media, in a rare public declaration of military failure. The secretive nation has a long history of denying or keeping incidents such as this a secret. An unknown number of North Korean sailors died in the sinking. However, photographs taken and shared by state media of the nation’s leader, Kim Jong-Un, holding a memorial service for the fallen show as many as 20 sailors’ gravestones.
In an uncharacteristic and public display of solemnity, Kim Jong-Un was shown by state media laying flowers for the soldiers killed in the North Korean warship sinking. The pictures of Kim Jong-Un’s visit are marked “Oct. 13.” The North Korean leader remarked that the servicemen had “met heroic deaths while performing their combat duties,” according to Channel News Asia. The location of the cemetery, built specifically for the sailors lost in October, is not known.
The circumstances of the sinking are not clear. The North Korean warship is publicly known only as “submarine chaser no. 233.” As BBC News points out, while the Asian nation has a large military much of it is operating with very dated equipment. South Korean media has suggested this was a reason for the sinking. These sources also believe the warship went down near Wonsan, located on the eastern coast of the Korean peninsula.
Other South Korean sources state that two North Korean warships actually sank last month, reports Huffington Post. The lost ships include a 375-ton Hainan-class submarine chaser and a smaller patrol boat. Hainan-class warships date back to the 1960s, sold to North Korea by China likely in the 1970s.
Technically, both Koreas are still at war but conflict has mostly ceased following the 1953 armistice agreement. Tension between North and South continue to this day. South Korea accused their northern neighbor of sinking one of their warships in 2010 with a submarine, killing 46 sailors.
Though reports say the nation’s military numbers to nearly one million troops, the North Korean warship sinking shows the nature of the rogue state’s military equipment.
[Featured image of Chinese Hainan-class warship via Wikimedia / Chenshao Ju]
