U.S sanctions North Korea leader Kim Jong-un over Human Right Abuses

The US has sanctioned North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for the first time over his "notorious abuses of human rights".

The sanctions, the first to target any North Koreans for rights abuses, affect property and other assets within the US jurisdiction.

They include 10 other individuals besides Kim and five government ministries and departments, the US Treasury Department said in a statement.

"Under Kim Jong-un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture," Acting Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam J. Szubin said.

Kim Jong-un topped a list in the report of those responsible for serious human rights abuses in North Korea.

Many of the abuses are in North Korea's prison camps, which hold between 80,000 and 120,000 people including children, the report said.