The South Korean military has reported that North Korea has resumed its trash-carrying balloon operation, which began last week. Approximately 600 North Korean balloons were discovered throughout South Korea over the weekend.
North Korea dumped feces, cigarette butts, fabric scraps, discarded batteries, and filthy diapers over South Korea in hundreds of enormous balloons. South Korea has threatened retaliation and has temporarily halted a delicate military agreement that was supposed to defuse tensions with its neighbor.
Provocative countermeasures near the border by North Korea might be prompted, according to experts, by South Korea’s return to live-fire exercises or anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts over loudspeakers in border regions.
Around a thousand trash-laden balloons have been launched across the border by North Korea since May 28. Although no dangerous substances were discovered, social media was nonetheless ablaze with concerns that North Korea would use balloons as a means of delivering chemical, biological, and other weapons during their next maneuver.
In response to earlier South Korean campaigns in which private citizens sent balloons containing leaflets and helpful items to North Korea, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, threatened to scatter wastepaper and garbage into South Korea. South Korean organizations may see the campaign restart if they keep sending leaflets north, according to a North Korean official who promised last Sunday that they would stop flying garbage-toting balloons into South Korea.
According to a statement released by North Korea’s state-run media, the country’s deputy minister of national defense, Kim Kang Il, stated that up until June 2nd, over 3,500 balloons of all sizes were delivered over the border. Authorities in South Korea announced that the majority of the balloons contained trash. North Korean authorities justified the balloons as a defensive action in response to pamphlets delivered over the border by Seoul civic organizations.
The campaign started with 260 balloons drifting across the border in one day, according to South Korean authorities. An official from North Korea said on Sunday that since then, thousands of balloons had been released into South Korea, bringing with them almost fifteen tons of garbage. According to Kim, the Republic of Korea (ROK) has learned the hard way how unpleasant it is to deal with trash and how much work is required to clean it up.
