North Korean Girl Drowns Trying to Save Kim Portraits

A photo released by the North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on 24 January 2012 shows North Koreans gather in front of the portrait of the late leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang, North Korea, on 23 January 2012 EPA/BGNES

North Korean officials have made a posthumous award to a 14-year-old girl who drowned in a flood as she was trying to save portraits of leaders Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il.

Han Hyon-Gyong, a 14-year-old schoolgirl from the eastern North Korean province of South Hamkyong, died on June 11 as she tried to take the portraits out of her flooded home, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper said on its web site, as cited by RIA Novosti.

According to the paper, Han's parents and school teachers also received awards.

The paper hailed the regime "that nurtures such children," and also mentioned a local farmer whose wife and children were killed in a landslide in 2007 while he was saving portraits of the Kims.

North Korea's still surviving communist dictatorship is known for its personality cult.

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