NORTH Korea despot Kim Jong-un has issued a secret order outlawing committing suicide.
Kim defined the act as one of “treason against socialism” and ordered local governments to take preventative measures.
The dictator’s move comes after a spike in his often-starving citizens taking their own lives.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service found suicides were up 40 per cent compared with last year.
The spy agency revealed: “There are a lot of internal unrest factors in North Korea due to people’s hardships.”
The confidential suicide order was delivered in a spate of emergency meetings across the country, Radio Free Asia reported.
One meeting recorded 35 suicide cases this year in Chongjin city and Kyongsong county alone — with most cases involving whole families taking their lives together.
At the meeting in Ryanggang province, the attendees were told that suicide has had a greater social impact than starvation, an official there told RFA on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
The official said: “Despite the suicide prevention policy ratified by the General Secretary, the officials were not able to come up with an appropriate solution”.
“Most of the suicides were caused by severe poverty and starvation, so no one can come up with a countermeasure right now.”
The meeting described several shocking cases in detail, according to the official.
He said: “In the city of Hyesan, a 10-year-old boy was living with his grandmother after his parents died of starvation, but they took their own lives by eating rat poison.
“It brought great sadness to all who saw it.”