Tens of thousands of weeping North Koreans have bade farewell to longtime leader Kim Jong-Il as his young son and successor walked beside his father's coffin through a snowbound Pyongyang.
Kim Jong-Un was at the forefront of the three-hour procession, in what analysts said was an attempt to bolster the image of the untested new leader of the impoverished but nuclear-armed nation.
The cortege started and ended its 40km journey at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where the late strongman's body had lain in state in a glass coffin.
Preceded by a car bearing a huge portrait of a smiling Kim and other vehicles, a limousine carried Kim's coffin - draped with a red ruling party flag and surrounded by white flowers - on its roof.
Jong-Un, dressed in black and gloveless despite the cold, held the side of his father's hearse, accompanied by his influential uncle Jang Song-Thaek and other officials.
"We have paraded here to bid farewell to our respected supreme commander," the head of a military honour guard said in a tearful voice, before a 21-gun salute was fired at the end of the ceremony.
Goose-stepping soldiers carrying dozens of party and military flags marched in salute to Jong-Un and senior officials.
Vast crowds of shivering soldiers and civilians, many weeping bitterly or beating the frozen ground, were seen on state television lining the route or parading outside the palace.
Famine
Kim Jong-Il's absolute 17-year rule was marked by a 1990s famine that killed hundreds of thousands, a crumbling state-directed economy and the pursuit of missiles and nuclear weapons which brought international sanctions.
UN agencies have said six million people - a quarter of the population - still urgently need food aid.
Since the elder Kim died of a heart attack on 17 December aged 69, the North's propaganda machine has been heaping tributes on both him and Jong-Un, aged in his late 20s.
Official media has declared Jong-Un the "great successor" and chief of the ruling party and military.
"The funeral revealed some clues about who will stand beside Kim Jong-Un to protect him," Professor Kim Yong-Hyun of Seoul's Dongguk University said.
Mourning will officially end Thursday with a nationwide memorial service including a three-minute silence.
Kim's body is expected to be embalmed in the memorial palace where the corpse of his father is already on display, according to South Korean newspaper Korea JoongAng Daily.
Across the heavily fortified border in South Korea, defectors launched leaflets into their former homeland calling for an end to the Kim dynasty.
"Kim Jong-Il. Go to hell!" read a banner attached to one of the giant balloons carrying bundles of leaflets across the frontier.
