North Korea has launched hundreds more balloons carrying rubbish towards its southern neighbour, South Korea’s military has said.
Between Saturday night and Sunday morning, about 700 balloons flown from North Korea have been found in various parts of South Korea, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
South Korea has said it will soon take “unbearable” retaliatory steps against North Korea over the balloon launches and other provocations.
Cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste paper and vinyl were tied to the balloons, but no dangerous substances were found.
Members of the public are advised to beware of falling debris and not to touch objects suspected to be from the north.
There have been no reports of injuries or damage.
Earlier this week, the government of Kim Jong Un flew hundreds of balloons filled with debris and manure in the direction of South Korea.
From Tuesday night into Wednesday, some 260 North Korean balloons were found in parts of South Korea.
Chemical rapid response and explosive clearance teams were dispatched to recover the debris. The military said the balloons carried various types of rubbish 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 the bags in mid-air.
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Image:
A balloon believed to have been sent by North Korea over a rice field in Cheorwon, South Korea. Pic: Reuters
Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s sister, said on Wednesday that her country was making good on a threat to “scatter mounds of wastepaper and filth”.
It was in response to South Korean activists flying anti-North Korean leaflets across the border, she added.
North Korea has also been jamming GPS signals near the border since Wednesday, with more than 900 aircraft and vessels reporting experiencing signals being scrambled.
South Korea’s national security director Chang Ho-jin said top officials at an emergency meeting had decided to take “unbearable” measures against North Korea in response, calling the North’s balloon campaign and GPS jamming “absurd, irrational acts of provocation that a normal country can’t imagine.”
He accused Pyongyang of aiming to cause “public anxieties and chaos” in South Korea.
South Korean officials did not say what retaliatory steps they would take, but observers suggest they will likely resume loudspeaker broadcasts into North Korea that include criticism of its brutal human rights situation, world news and K-pop songs.
North Korea later said it would temporarily suspend sending the balloons into the South, state media KCNA reported, citing a statement from the country’s vice defence minister. Pyongyang will resume the act if South Korea sends anti-North Korean leaflets the other way, it added.
On Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong said the North was merely exercising its freedom of expression – an apparent reference to South Korea saying it could not stop anti-North Korean activists from flying leaflets across the border as it would restrict their freedom of expression.
“Once you experience how nasty and exhausting it feels to go around picking up dirty filth, you will realise that you shouldn’t talk about freedom of expression so easily when it comes to [leafletting] in border areas,” she said.
“We will make it clear that we will respond with 10 more times the amount of filth to what the [South Koreans] spray to us in the future.”
