South Korea’s military says North Korea has again launched balloons possibly loaded with trash into South Korea, spurring a bizarre psychological warfare operation amid rising tensions between the two countries divided by war.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Saturday that winds could carry the balloons as far as areas north of the South Korean capital, Seoul, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Gyeonggi Provincial Government issued text alerts urging citizens to be on the lookout for objects falling from the sky and to report any balloons to the military or police.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or property damage.
In recent weeks, North Korea has launched more than 2,000 balloons loaded with waste paper, rags and cigarette butts into South Korea in retaliation for South Korean activists flying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border.
Pyongyang is highly sensitive to any outside criticism of Kim Jong Un’s authoritarian rule and has long condemned such activities.
The last time North Korea sent balloons towards South Korea was on July 24, when at least one balloon carried debris that fell on South Korea’s presidential office, raising concerns about the vulnerability of key South Korean facilities. The balloons did not contain any dangerous materials and no one was injured, according to South Korea’s presidential security bureau.
South Korea has responded to the North’s balloon campaign by activating loudspeakers on the front lines to blast propaganda messages and K-pop songs, which experts say North Korea dislikes for fear of lowering morale among its frontline soldiers and civilians.
The Cold War-era tit-for-tat battle between South and North Korea has raised tensions, with both sides threatening stronger measures and warning of serious consequences.
Relations between the two countries have deteriorated in recent years as Kim Jong Un has accelerated North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs and continued to threaten nuclear war with Washington and Seoul. In response, South Korea, the United States and Japan have expanded joint military drills and strengthened a nuclear deterrence strategy centered on U.S. strategic assets.
Experts say hostility between the two countries could intensify further with the start later this month of annual joint military drills between South Korea and the United States in an effort to counter the North Korean nuclear threat.
The renewed balloon campaign comes as North Korea struggles to recover from devastating floods that submerged thousands of homes and vast swathes of farmland in areas near the border with China.
North Korean state media said on Saturday that Kim Jong Un had ordered authorities to move some 15,400 people displaced by the floods to the capital, Pyongyang, to provide them with better care, and that rebuilding homes in flood-hit areas would take two to three months.
Kim has so far rejected offers of help from traditional allies Russia and China, as well as international aid groups, insisting North Korea can rebuild on its own. He accused “enemy” South Korea of waging a “vicious smear campaign” to tarnish his country’s image and said South Korean media had exaggerated the damage and casualties from the floods.
