AKIPRESS.COM - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been in a coma for months and all his recent public appearances were faked, a South Korean official says in a new report, New York Post reported.

Chang Song-min, a former aide to late-South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, alleged that Kim has become seriously ill amid speculation about his limited public appearances this year.

In April, rumors circulated that the Hermit Kingdom honcho was in a vegetative state after a botched heart operation.

The former aide now claims Kim fell into a coma months ago and that his subsequent appearances were recorded previously, according to the UK’s Sun.

“I assess him to be in a coma, but his life has not ended,” he told South Korean media, adding that the leader’s younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, was poised to help lead the country.

“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,” he said.

In a closed-door meeting with lawmakers last week, the National Intelligence Service said the power shift partly seeks to “relieve (Kim’s) stress from his reign and avert culpability in the event of policy failure,” the Yonhap News Agency reported.

Photographs emerged Thursday showing Kim attending a government meeting, though Reuters reported that it could not “independently verify” the images.

The Daily NK, a South Korea-based news outlet about the North, reported that sources in the rogue regime have claimed that Kim’s sister is seeking to secure her position in Pyongyang by taking on the South.

“She can’t rule the country from the military like her brother, so she is expanding her authority through the Propaganda and Agitation Department, just like her father Kim Jong-il,” a source said, The Sun reported.