North Korea’s Kim Jong Un In Coma, Sister Taking Over, New Rumors Say

North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, was rumored months ago to be in a coma. Since then, he’s made public appearances and the stories died down. Now, new information suggests that there may have been more truth to the stories than previously credited.

The information comes primarily from Chang Song-min, a former aide of South Korea’s late president Kim Dae-Jung, according to the Hindustan Times, and hasn’t been confirmed by any official source. Chang says that his own information comes from a source in China, that Kim is comatose, and that more recent photos are all faked. The former aide released this information in a social media post.

I assess [Kim Jong Un] to be in a coma, but his life has not ended. A complete succession structure has not been formed, so Kim Yo-jong is being brought to the fore as the vacuum cannot be maintained for a prolonged period.

When rumors circulated in April, Donald Trump addressed them cryptically at a press conference, Time reports. The U.S. president said that he knew about Kim’s condition but couldn’t release the information yet, but suggested that the information would become public knowledge “in the not too distant future.” For details about Kim’s condition, he would only say “I wish him well.”

NK News dismissed the new information as merely rumors, though it confirmed that “some authority” has been tranferred to Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, attributing the power shift to “stress” on Kim Jong Un. Still images and a small amount of video have been released by state media over the past several months, and these are being cited as evidence against the rumors.