North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently thanked the youth in restoration efforts in flood-affected Sinuiju City and Uiju County in North Pyongan Province. These regions sustained significant damage at the end of last month. Kim praised the youth, calling them the creators of a “new hero youth legend.”
North Korea’s state-run newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, reported that the departure ceremony for the Paektusan Hero Youth Shock Brigade took place in Pyongyang yesterday. The event was held at the April 25 House of Culture.
During his speech at the ceremony, Kim mentioned that after deciding to dispatch the Paektusan Hero Youth Shock Brigade to rebuild houses in the damaged areas of Sinuiju and Uiju County, nearly 300,000 youths have volunteered for the recovery efforts within less than a week of receiving the Party’s decision and the Central Committee of the North Korean Socialist Patriotic Youth League.
He stressed that such an explosive wave of volunteering enthusiasm is unparalleled in any other country. He also wants to flaunt the country’s heroic youths to the world.
Kim said that such a restoration operation would give the territory a complete facelift and expressed confidence that Paektusan Hero Youth Shock Brigade, members of the Socialist Patriotic Youth Alliance, and workers would be a vanguard unit for socialist construction.
The youths participating in the recovery efforts that day pledged to embrace Kim’s “noble intentions” by displaying utmost sincerity and patriotism in completing all buildings as monumental creations that they could proudly present to the Party and the people for generations to come.
North Korea held an emergency expanded Politburo meeting last week, announcing that “the People’s Army units and Paektusan Hero Youth Shock Brigade will construct over 4,400 modern homes in the damaged areas of Sinuiju and Uiju County, and in North Pyongan Province, they will work alongside the People’s Army to strengthen the embankments in the island regions permanently.”
As a result, it appears that the Paektusan Hero Youth Shock Brigade youth members will be deployed to the disaster recovery sites. Kim’s direct participation in the event, where he expressed gratitude to the youths for their volunteerism, is interpreted as a way to help boost their sense of unity and solidarity.
The ceremony included participants such as Jo Yong Won, Kim Jae Ryong, Worker’s Party Secretaries Park Tae Seong, Ju Chang Il, Kim Jong Sun, Moon Chul, head of the Central Committee of the North Korean Socialist Patriotic Youth League, members of the Paektusan Hero Youth Shock Brigade.