The US is levying sanctions against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the first time, cutting him and some of his officials off from the global financial system to punish them for widespread human rights abuses. 

The US has long had sanctions in place in an effort to halt North Korea’s nuclear programme and has been dialling them up in recent months. But senior US officials said Wednesday’s move marks both the first time Washington has targeted the country and its officials over the regime’s human rights record, and the first time it has placed sanctions on the country’s 33-year-old supreme leader since he took power in 2011. 

The sanctions announced by the US Treasury came alongside the release of a State Department report identifying both senior and mid-ranking officials allegedly involved in rights abuses. Those included extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and the running of prison camps that the US said were home to between 80,000 and 120,000 North Koreans.