South Korea’s military has said it was on alert for possibly more rubbish-carrying balloons arriving from North Korea tomorrow, a potential response to the propaganda balloons sent this week by South Korean activists.
Pyongyang announced a halt to the balloons tomorrow but days later, a South Korean group called ‘Fighters for Free North Korea’ said it had sent 10 balloons with USB thumb drives containing K-pop music and 200,000 leaflets against leader Kim Jong-un.
The South Korean military is “closely monitoring with vigilance” because of “the possibility of more trash balloons descending around tomorrow”, its spokesperson told AFP.
North Korea had said it would respond with “wastepaper and rubbish” a hundred times the amount if more South Korean leaflets were sent.
Another group, comprising North Korean defectors, said it had sent 10 balloons on Friday with 200,000 anti-Pyongyang leaflets, 100 radios, and USB thumb drives containing a speech by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Jang Se-yul, the leader of the group, told AFP his organisation will not stop its campaign, “whether Kim Jong Un sends trash-carrying balloons again or not”.
The North Korean balloons last week landed in a number of locations in the South, and were found to be carrying rubbish such as cigarette butts, cardboard scrap and waste batteries.
In response to the balloons, South Korea on Tuesday completely suspended a 2018 military deal with the North, which was meant to reduce tensions between the neighbours.
Authorities in Seoul have condemned the North Korean balloons as a “low-class” act and threatened countermeasures that it said Pyongyang would find “unendurable”.
