North Koreans mark founder’s birthday

Mask-wearing North Koreans danced in a plaza or climbed a Pyongyang hill on Thursday to mark the 109th birthday of the country’s founder amid pandemic fears and economic woes.

April 15, called “The Day of the Sun” in North Korea, is the most important public holiday.

Kim Il Sung, a former guerrilla fighter during the Japanese colonial period, founded North Korea in 1948. On Thursday, neatly dressed North Koreans visited Pyongyang’s Mansu Hill to lay flowers and bow below the towering bronze statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Soldiers wearing masks saluted. Elsewhere in Pyongyang, women wearing colorful traditional clothes performed a folk dance.