Kim Jong Un has launched more garbage balloons toward South Korea after about 260 were sent earlier in the week, according to the South Korean military, in what Pyongyang calls retaliation for activists dropping leaflets against North Korea. across the border.
Between Tuesday and Wednesday, balloons containing various items of trash, including plastic bottles, batteries, toilet paper and what is believed to be manure, were released in eight of South Korea’s nine provinces, a state official said. Major Joint.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing unnamed military sources, said that as of Saturday night officials found about 90 new balloons dropping paper and plastic trash and cigarette butts in areas of the capital Seoul. and the nearby province of Gyeonggi.
The military advised people to be careful about falling objects and not to touch objects suspected of being from North Korea, but to report them to military or police officials. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
In Seoul, the city government sent text alerts saying that unidentified objects suspected to have come from North Korea were detected in the skies near the city and that the military was responding to them.
Kim Jong Un has launched more garbage balloons toward South Korea after around 260 were sent earlier in the week.
Between Tuesday and Wednesday, balloons containing various items of trash, including plastic bottles, batteries, toilet paper and what is believed to be manure, were released in eight of South Korea’s nine provinces.
The North’s balloon launches added to a recent series of provocative moves, including the botched launch of a spy satellite and a barrage of short-range missile launches this week that the North said were aimed at demonstrating its ability to attack the South preemptively.
South Korea’s military sent rapid chemical response and explosives clearance teams to recover the remains of about 260 North Korean balloons that were found in various parts of the country from Tuesday night to Wednesday.
The military said the balloons carried various types of garbage and manure, but no dangerous substances such as chemical, biological or radioactive materials. Some of the balloons were found with timers suggesting they were designed to pop garbage bags into the air.
In a statement Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, confirmed that the North sent the balloons to carry out her country’s recent threat to “scatter piles of waste paper and garbage” in South Korea in answer. to leaflet campaigns by South Korean activists.
Image of trash from a balloon allegedly sent by North Korea, in Seoul on Wednesday
South Korean soldiers collect balloons allegedly sent by North Korea, found on a hill in Pyeongtaek on Wednesday. About 200 such balloons have been discovered so far across the country, military and police sources said, adding that they mainly contained garbage and other debris.
He hinted that balloons could become the North’s standard response to leafleting in the future, saying the North would respond by “spreading trash dozens of times more than they’re spreading to us.”
South Korea’s military has said it has no plans to shoot down the balloons, citing concerns about causing damage or the possibility that they contain dangerous substances. Shooting balloons near the border would also risk triggering retaliation from the North at a time of high tensions.
“(We) decided it was best to drop the balloons and recover them safely,” Lee Sung Joon, spokesman for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a briefing Thursday.
North Korea is extremely sensitive to any outside attempts to undermine Kim Jong Un’s stranglehold on the country’s 26 million people, most of whom have little access to foreign news.
A balloon believed to have been sent by North Korea, carrying several objects, including what appeared to be garbage and excrement, is seen over a rice field in Cheorwon, South Korea, on Wednesday.
In another sign of tensions between the war-divided rivals, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea has also been launching large quantities of garbage balloons toward the South since Tuesday night in apparent retaliation. against South Korean activists for flying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border
In 2020, North Korea blew up an empty liaison office built by South Korea on its territory after a furious response to South Korea’s civilian leaflet distribution campaigns.
In 2014, North Korea fired at propaganda balloons flying toward its territory and South Korea returned fire, although there were no casualties.
In 2022, North Korea even suggested that balloons flown from South Korea had caused a COVID-19 outbreak in the isolated nation, a highly questionable claim that appeared to be an attempt to blame the South for worsening inter-Korean relations.