North Korea despot Kim Jong-un has issued a secret order outlawing suicide, according to reports.
The dictator described the act as "treason against socialism" and has ordered local governments to take preventative measures, reports say.
There's been a spike in North Korea citizens taking their own lives, with one spy agency finding suicides were up 40 per cent this year than last.
"There are a lot of internal unrest factors in North Korea due to people’s hardships," a spokesperson for South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said.
The confidential suicide order was delivered in a spate of emergency meetings across the country, Radio Free Asia has reported.
One meeting recorded 35 suicide cases this year in Chongjin city and Kyongsong county alone - with most cases involving whole families taking their lives together.
Starvation deaths, meanwhile, in North Korea have tripled this past year.
But at the meeting in Ryanggang province, the attendees were told suicide has had a greater social impact than starvation, according to The Sun.
Speaking at the meeting, an official said: "Despite the suicide prevention policy ratified by the General Secretary, the officials were not able to come up with an appropriate solution.
"Most of the suicides were caused by severe poverty and starvation, so no one can come up with a countermeasure right now."
The meeting described several shocking cases in detail, according to the official.
He said: “In the city of Hyesan, a 10-year-old boy was living with his grandmother after his parents died of starvation, but they took their own lives by eating rat poison.
“It brought great sadness to all who saw it.”
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