Over the last week, more than 3,500 waste balloons have been launched from North Korea into South Korea. The North Korean Vice Defense minister, Kim Kang II, has stated that this comes as retaliation for the balloons sent by South Korean activists containing anti-Pyongyang leaflets.
Kim says the balloons have halted temporarily saying, “We’ve let the South Koreans experience enough of how dirty it feels and how much joint effort it takes to clean up spread-out rubbish”.
So far, 960 balloons have been found scattered across the country, with some being discovered as far as Gyeonggi and Chungcheong, approximately 185 miles (300 km) from the capital Seoul.
A South Korean official has stated, however, that the government will be taking unspecified actions in the coming days as a response to the balloons. South Korea formerly deployed a tactic of using loud speakers to blast propaganda messages across the border, however, in 2018 an agreement between the countries ended that. South Korea has stated that they are considering breaking the agreement in retaliation.
