North Korea’s trash balloons deepen tensions with the South. Here’s what’s happening between rivals

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Animosities between North and South Korea are rising sharply again over an unusual cause: The North’s rubbish-carrying balloons.

In the past week, North Korea floated hundreds of huge balloons dumping manure, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste batteries and even reportedly dirty diapers across South Korea. In response, South Korea vowed “unbearable” retaliatory steps and moved to suspend a fragile military deal meant to ease tensions with its northern neighbor.

Experts say if South Korea resumes live-fire drills or anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts via loudspeakers in border areas, that’s certain to infuriate North Korea and may prompt it to take its own provocative countermeasures along the border.

Here’s a look at North Korea’s balloon launches:

WHAT DID NORTH KOREA DO?

Since May 28, North Korea has sent about 1,000 balloons carrying all kinds of trash across the border. No hazardous materials were found, but South Korean social media was still abuzz with worries that North Korea might use balloons to drop chemical, biological and other weapons next time.

After the first wave of balloons, Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said they were deployed to make good on her country’s threat to “scatter mounds of wastepaper and filth” in South Korea, in reaction to previous South Korean campaigns by private citizens sending balloons with items to North Korea.

Kim Kang Il, a North Korean vice defense minister, said Sunday the North would halt its balloon campaign because it left the South Koreans with “enough experience of how much unpleasant they feel.”

South Korean civic activists have steadfastly launched their own helium-filled balloons to drop