North Korea Sends More Trash Balloons to South Korea

A balloon presumably sent by North Korea, on the Han River in Seoul, South Korea, on June 9, 2024. South Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff via AP

North Korea sent hundreds more balloons carrying bags of trash toward South Korea over the weekend after South Korea resumed broadcasting anti-North Korea messages, among other content, via loudspeakers near their shared international border.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said on June 10 that it detected some 310 balloons launched by North Korea across the inter-Korean border on June 9 and confirmed that they were carrying scrap paper and plastic.

Previous balloons reportedly carried trash, manure, waste batteries, cigarette butts, and soiled diapers. South Korean residents have been advised not to touch any objects they find attached to the balloons.

The latest batch was released after Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, warned of “new counteraction” against South Korea’s resumption of loudspeaker broadcasts.

In a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Ms. Kim said that South Korea’s action was “a prelude to a very dangerous situation” and accused the country of “creating a new crisis.”

“I sternly warn Seoul to stop at once the dangerous act of bringing the further confrontation crisis and discipline itself,” she was quoted by the KCNA as saying.

South Korea resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts after North Korea on June 8 launched about 330 balloons carrying trash, with about 80 of them dropping over the border, the JCS said.

South Korea’s National Security Council (NSC) made the decision during an emergency meeting on June 9, saying that the nation will remain in a “state of readiness” to counter any provocation from North Korea.

“Although the measures we are taking may be difficult for the North Korean regime to endure, they will deliver messages of light and hope to the North Korean military and citizens,” the NSC stated, according to local media Yonhap News Agency.

“We make it clear that the responsibility for any escalation of tension between the two Koreas will lie entirely with North Korea.”

South Korea stopped the broadcasts under an agreement signed by the two countries’ leaders in 2018, but tensions have mounted since then as North Korea pushed ahead with nuclear weapons development.

The South Korean military estimates that North Korea has now sent more than 1,600 balloons carrying bags of trash across the border since the start of its campaign in May.

The North Korean regime has said the move was in retaliation for the actions of South Korean citizens who had previously flown balloons carrying items into North Korea. Those items included money, medicine, and USB sticks with South Korean television shows and films.

South Korea has vowed to take retaliatory action against the North and has suspended a 2018 military deal originally meant to ease tensions between the two nations.

The agreement required the two countries to cease hostile acts against one another at border areas along the demilitarized zone, including military firing exercises, aerial surveillance, and psychological warfare.

North and South Korea separated during a brutal civil war in the 1950s, and although they signed an armistice in 1953, they never concluded the war with a peace agreement.

Andrew Thornebrooke, The Associated Press, and Reuters contributed to this report.