▲ Kim Jong-un arriving at a destroyer commissioning ceremony on a yacht
An 80-meter luxury vessel has been repeatedly spotted near the coast of Wonsan, where North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has a summer villa, the BBC reported on the 18th (local time).
The BBC stated that this was confirmed through an analysis of satellite imagery of the Wonsan coast taken from July to mid-October this year.
The vessel features a 50-meter-long swimming pool on its deck and multiple water slides installed on one side, it added.
The ship had been docked at maintenance facilities for several months before moving to the waters near the Kalma Peninsula in Wonsan in early July.
This area is close to a coastal resort where a large-scale villa used by Kim's family is located.
Along with this ship, three other vessels measuring 50 meters, 55 meters, and 60 meters were also found to have moved multiple times around Kim's villa.
Citing former North Korean officials, defectors, and experts, the BBC reported that these vessels appear to be effectively private ships for Kim's family.
Ri Jong-ho, a defector who handled foreign currency earnings for the ruling Workers' Party Office 39—which manages the funds of Kim's family—told the BBC, "They are kept in shipyards during the winter and moved to Kim's villa or the Kalma area in the summer to be used for swimming and recreation."
While the exact price of the vessels captured in the satellite photos is unknown, luxury yachts of a similar scale cost around 100 million dollars (approx. 134 billion won), the BBC reported.
The media outlet pointed out that such a lavish lifestyle by Kim's family stands in stark contrast to the reality faced by ordinary North Korean residents suffering from severe economic hardship.
Wonsan has been a favored vacation spot for the Kim family since the reign of Kim Jong-il, the late leader and father of Kim Jong-un.
Instead of directly reporting on Kim's vacations, North Korean state media disguise them as local guidance or inspection activities for propaganda purposes.
Dennis Rodman, a former National Basketball Association (NBA) star who visited North Korea in 2013, stated in a past interview that he spent a significant portion of his seven-day trip in Wonsan with Kim, enjoying jet skiing and horse riding together.
Rodman described the 60-meter-long vessel they used at the time as a ship that looked like a combination of a passenger ferry and an American Disney cruise ship.
(Photo: Korean Central Television screen, Yonhap News)
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