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SEOUL, July 19 — In a recent escalation of tensions with North Korea, South Korea’s military utilized loudspeakers to broadcast messages near the border, reacting to North Korea’s release of balloons filled with garbage, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff reported on Friday.
According to the military’s statement, these broadcasts were a direct consequence of repeated warnings to North Korea about its balloon launches, which have been dropping debris in the South. The broadcasts, which began on Thursday evening and continued into the early hours of Friday, have not disclosed their specific content; however, they have previously included K-pop music and news segments from South Korea.
The incident comes in the wake of North Korea sending approximately 200 balloons across the border on Thursday night alone, with about 40 making landfall in South Korea’s northern Gyeonggi Province. These balloons primarily carried harmless materials like paper, the Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed.
The ongoing saga includes over 2,000 such balloons dispatched by Pyongyang in recent weeks, some loaded with less benign contents like manure and old clothes, and even carrying parasites identified as roundworms and threadworms, believed to be derived from human feces.
The situation has heightened actions on both sides of the DMZ, with South Korea resuming its loudspeaker propaganda last month in retaliation to these balloon launches. Tensions remain high as North Korea has also increased its military readiness by undertaking activities like land clearing, building barriers, and planting numerous landmines along the DMZ, raising concerns especially with the onset of the rainy season which can displace these mines into the South.
These heightened military preparations follow a pattern of aggressive responses from North Korea, including a significant incident in June 2020 when it severed all communication with the South and destroyed an inter-Korean liaison office, after complaints regarding South Korean defectors floating anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.
Adding to the severity of the situation, earlier this week Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, issued a stark warning of “gruesome” repercussions if the South fails to prevent balloon launches from its territory. The South Korean military has stated that any further responses will depend solely on North Korea’s future actions.