Land mine blasts inflicted casualties on North Korean troops in DMZ in recent months, South says

Seoul, South Korea CNN —

North Korean troops have suffered “multiple casualties” from land mine explosions while laying explosives along the country’s heavily armed border with the South in recent months, the South Korean military said Tuesday.

Since January, North Korean soldiers have been setting mines and installing structures that appear to be anti-tank barriers at various locations along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that splits the Koreas, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

A number of the North Korean soldiers were killed or wounded by land mine explosions, the JCS said in a statement, without providing more details on the casualties.

The South Korean military is closely monitoring the North’s military activities on the border, it added.

The report comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ramped up fiery rhetoric and scrapped a longstanding policy of seeking peaceful reunification with South Korea.

In recent weeks, hundreds of trash-filled ballons launched from the North have landed in the South, while the government in Seoul resumed loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts across the border.

Last week, Kim’s sister and Pyongyang spokeswoman Kim Yo Jong warned the resumption of the broadcasts was “a prelude to a very dangerous situation,” saying South Korea would be subject to an unspecified “new counteraction” from the North if it continued with the action and failed to prevent activists from sending anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets over the border.

In this photo taken on May 9, 2023, South Korean soldiers stand guard as they face North Korea's Panmon Hall (back) at the truce village of Panmunjom in the Joint Security Area (JSA) of