An increasing number of North Korean soldiers are showing “AWOL” behaviors to avoid intense physical training and look for food, the local daily, Chosun Ilbo, said Saturday, sourcing it to RFA.

AWOL is a military acronym for "absence without leave."

“It’s hard to punish them because there are too many of such soldiers,” an unnamed North Korean informant, told RFA in the report.

Some of the soldiers display “on-off’ AWOL behaviors, for example, leaving the barracks in the morning looking for food and coming back in the evening.

“The en masse absence is even causing difficulty in carrying out training according to schedule,” the source said.

The sorry state of the military even earned Kim Jong-un’s ire, who reportedly said: “Those incapable military commanders should resign.”

The informant, introduced in the report as a soldier, put the low morale in the North Korean military this way. “If there were 10 AWOL reports, the actual number would be about 50.”