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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA —North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has mobilized young laborers to launch a new housing project in Pyongyang, state media said on Sunday, as he pushes an ambitious plan to build 50,000 homes in the capital despite deepening economic hardships.
Kim attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction project in Pyongyang's Sopo district on Saturday with thousands of young laborers, the official KCNA news agency reported.
In 2021, Kim unveiled a plan to build 50,000 new homes in Pyongyang by 2025, and state media reported the completion of the first 10,000 new apartments last year, including an 80-floor skyscraper.
The groundbreaking came as South Korea warned of a deepening food crisis in the isolated North amid sanctions over its weapons programs and the fallout from COVID-19 lockdowns, including a recent surge in deaths from starvation in some countryside regions.
Kim has said the housing projects face "unprecedentedly harsh challenges." He tapped the young labor units, called dolgyeokdae or "Shock Brigade," in his pet infrastructure initiatives, which have often faced lackluster progress amid resources shortages, including a massive housing campaign in the northern alpine town of Samjiyon.
In Sopo, he aims to create a "distinctive street" with about 4,100 homes, in addition to a recently launched drive for 10,000 apartments, Kim said, thanking some 100,000 young men who volunteered to join the plans.
The new housing project would serve as "another proud page in the history of youth movements" and a symbol of the country's socialist revolution and "political struggle," Kim said.
"The distinctive architecture of this street will intuitively show our nation's status and rapid development," Kim said, accompanied by his young daughter, who has appeared recently in a series of major events.
"It will clearly prove to the world how our movement and struggle are advancing and developing and how vigorously they are expanding even in the face of the most arduous trials and difficulties," he added.