Kim Jong-un 'fathers third child' after months of speculation about fate of wife Ri Sol-ju

Little is known about the new generation of the Kim dynasty

Ri Sol-ju (left) with her husband Kim Jong-un (centre) pictured in October 2015 at a 70th anniversary celebration for the Workers' Party of Korea (Reuters)

Kim Jong-un has become a father for the third time, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.

In a report to South Korea’s parliament yesterday, representatives of the country’s National Intelligence Service said they believed the North Korean dictator’s wife Ri Sol-Ju had given birth in February.

Speculation on the peninsula had been rife after she disappeared from public view for some months toward the end of 2016. The couple married in 2009, with children arriving in in 2010 and 2013.

Little is known about the new generation of the Kim dynasty, one of whom, barring the regime’s collapse, is likely to succeed their father in the DPRK’s quasi-monarchical system. US basketball star Dennis Rodman, who has conducted unofficial ‘diplomacy’ in the reclusive country, has reported that the second child is a girl.

The news arrived as Kim’s military conducted a missile test that flew over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido – the country’s 14th such test this year.