North Korea has flown hundreds of balloons carrying trash and manure toward South Korea
North Korea flew hundreds of balloons carrying trash and manure toward South Korea in one of its most bizarre provocations against its rival in years, prompting the South’s military to mobilise chemical and explosive response teams to recover objects and debris in different parts of the country.
The balloon campaign came as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un urged his military scientists to overcome a failed satellite launch and continue developing space-based reconnaissance capabilities, which he described as crucial for countering U.S. and South Korean military activities, state media said on Wednesday.
In his first public comments about the launch failure, Mr. Kim also warned of unspecified “overwhelming actions” against South Korea over an exercise involving 20 fighter jets near the inter-Korean border hours before North Korea’s failed launch on Monday. In a speech on Tuesday, Mr. Kim described the South Korean response as a “hysterical attack formation flight and strike drill” and “direct military challenge” toward North Korea, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea also has been flying large numbers of trash-carrying balloons toward the South since Tuesday night in retaliation against South Korean activists for flying anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets across the border.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea also has been flying large numbers of trash-carrying balloons toward the South since Tuesday night in retaliation against South Korean activists for flying anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets across the border.
Later Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s powerful sister, took to state media to ridicule a South Korean military statement demanding that the North stop its “inhumane and vulgar activity.” She said the North was merely exercising its freedom of expression, which the Seoul government has stated as a reason for its inability to stop anti-North Korean activists from flying leaflets across the border.
“Once you experience how nasty and exhausting it feels to go around picking up dirty filth, you will realize 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 tens more times the amount of filth to what the (South Koreans) spray to us in the future.”
Photos released by the South Korean military showed trash scattered across highways and roads in different parts of the country. In the capital, Seoul, military officials found what appeared to be a timer that was likely designed to pop the bags of trash midair. In the central South Chungcheong province, two huge balloons carrying an un-popped plastic bag filled with dirt-like substances were seen at a road.
There were no immediate reports of damage caused by the balloons. Similar North Korean balloon activities damaged cars and other property in 2016.
Kim Jong Un’s comments about the satellite were from a speech at the North’s Academy of Defense Sciences, which he visited a day after a rocket carrying what would have been his country’s second military reconnaissance satellite exploded shortly after liftoff. North Korea’s aerospace technology administration said the explosion was possibly related to the reliability of a newly developed rocket engine that is fueled by petroleum and uses liquid oxygen as an oxidizer.
Animosities between the Koreas are at their worst level in years as the pace of both Kim’s weapons demonstrations and South Korea’s combined military exercises with the U.S. and Japan have intensified since 2022.