South Korea accused North Korea on Wednesday of sending a large number of balloons across the heavily fortified border between the countries to drop objects that included trash and excrement, calling the act base and dangerous.
\nThe military\u2019s explosives ordnance unit and chemical and biological warfare response team were deployed to inspect and collect the objects, and an alert was issued warning residents to keep away and report any sightings to authorities.
\nBy Wednesday, more than 150 balloons had been detected, with some landing on the ground while others were still in the air, local media reported, citing military sources.
\nBalloons have regularly been sent the other way by South Korean activists, often led by North Korean defectors.
\nThose balloons carry leaflets with messages critical of Pyongyang, stirring tension between the neighbours, including incidents when the North reportedly tried to shoot them down.
\nPhotographs released by the South Korean military on Wednesday showed inflated balloons with plastic bags tethered to them. Other images appeared to show trash strewn around collapsed balloons, with the word \u201cexcrement\u201d written on a bag in one photograph.
\nOn Sunday, North Korea\u2019s vice defence minister issued a statement vowing to exercise \u201cstrong power for self-defence\u201d and warned that \u201cmounds of waste-paper and filth\u201d would be sent to the South in response to its flying \u201cdirty things\u201d to the North.
\nNorth Korea has reacted angrily to South Korean activists\u2019 balloons, which also carry information about the democratic society in the South and even USB memory sticks with K-pop music videos.
\nPrevious South Korean governments have sought to stop activists from conducting such campaigns, arguing they did not help advance peace and endangered the safety of residents near the border.
\nA ban on balloon launches introduced in 2021 was later ruled unconstitutional by a top court, which said it violated freedom of speech.
\nThe two Koreas\u2019 large militaries face off across the military border and North Korea routinely threatens to annihilate its neighbour.
\nPeter Ward, a research fellow at the Sejong Institute, said sending balloons was a far less risky than taking overt military action.
\n\u201cThese kinds of grey zone tactics are more difficult to counter and hold less risk of uncontrollable military escalation, even if they\u2019re horrid for the civilians who are ultimately targeted,\u201d he said.
\n(Reuters)balloons. balloons, border tensions, South Korea<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Korea accused North Korea of sending balloons across the border to drop trash and excrement, prompting a military response. Over 150 balloons were detected, with some landing on the ground. North Korea has threatened to send waste-paper in response to South Korean activists’ balloons carrying critical messages about Pyongyang. Previous attempts to ban balloon launches were ruled unconstitutional. Sending balloons is seen as a less risky tactic compared to military action, according to a research fellow at the Sejong Institute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8144,3258,8575,5277,11588,2149,7129,11589,9730,5334,932,3530,6331,3355,7746,1939,487,148,2952,3504,699,467,4834,7627,1004,8183,4620,6074,8257,4054,1222,948,7558,1827,6425,618,114,2551,9705,5591,5129,884,6305,18],"class_list":["post-13558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-activists","tag-air","tag-authorities","tag-bags","tag-balloons","tag-ban","tag-border","tag-border-tensions","tag-campaigns","tag-civilians","tag-court","tag-defence-minister","tag-escalation","tag-exercise","tag-explosives","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-incidents","tag-local","tag-media","tag-military","tag-music","tag-north-korea","tag-peace","tag-plastic","tag-power","tag-released","tag-report","tag-research","tag-response","tag-risk","tag-safety","tag-south-korea","tag-speech","tag-statement","tag-tension","tag-top","tag-top-news","tag-trash","tag-vice","tag-warfare","tag-warning","tag-waste","tag-who","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n