Funeral of late President Kim Jong Il

The official memorial service for late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was held in Pyongyang on the morning of December 28.

The funeral of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il took place on the snowy streets of Pyongyang with solemn state ceremony.

Footage on North Korean state television showed Kim Jong Un, son and successor of late leader Kim Jong Il, with a tearful face next to a hearse bearing a portrait of his smiling father.

Other senior officials followed, including his uncle Jang Song Taek, vice chairman of the National Defense Commission.

The soldiers in green uniforms stood with their heads bowed, hats in their hands.

On the streets where the procession passed, crowds of people were mourning in the falling snow.

"That was our leader," a soldier interviewed by CNN at the station. "In this snow, we send him off with bleeding hearts."

A state memorial service will be held tomorrow, Thursday. According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), artillery shells will be fired in the capital and major cities.

"Everyone will observe three minutes of silence in memory, and all trains and ships will blow their horns at the same time to bid farewell to the late President," KCNA said. (According to CNN).

Earlier, according to media reports, Leader Kim Jong-un met with senior officials at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace. The leaders sadly said their final farewells to the late leader Kim Jong Il. The hearse then left the Kumsusan Memorial Palace and made a tour around Pyongyang. There will be a farewell artillery barrage at the memorial service.

The streets of Pyongyang are packed with people who are eager to see their beloved leader for the last time. The hearse will stop briefly at Kim Il Sung Square. Then it will return to the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where the late President Kim Jong Il will be laid to rest.

A portrait of President Kim Jong Il is carried through the streets of Pyongyang (Photo: Yonhap)

The Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the Workers' Party of Korea, said in its December 28 issue that leader Kim Jong Il's coffin will be carried through central Pyongyang after a 24-gun salute to send him off.

Despite the rain and snow, hundreds of thousands of North Koreans lined the streets to bid farewell to their beloved leader.

Solemn funeral held at Kumsusan Memorial Palace (Photo: Reuters)

It is not yet clear whether Kim Jong Il will be buried or embalmed like his father. But according to South Korea's Joong Ang newspaper, Russian embalming experts arrived in Pyongyang on December 27.

In recent days, North Korean media has also called on workers working abroad to return home to mourn Kim Jong Il.

Thousands of people from all over flocked to Pyongyang to attend the funeral (Photo: Reuters)

A large number of fresh flowers were also shipped from Shanghai across the North Korean border to serve the funeral. According to AFP, on December 27 alone, 200 trucks carrying flowers with Chinese license plates entered North Korean territory, compared to 120 trucks per day since December 19, the day North Korea officially announced the death of Kim Jong Il.

The funeral is expected to be an occasion to confirm the succession of the new leader, General Kim Jong-un, the youngest son of Kim Jong Il.

According to VOV