North Korea sends trash-carrying balloons again: Seoul military

North Korea again sent trash-carrying balloons towards the South on Saturday, Seoul’s military said, after anti-Pyongyang activists said they had dispatched balloons with leaflets against leader Kim Jong-un across the border.

“North Korea is again floating [suspected] balloons carrying trash towards the South,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, advising the public to refrain from touching the balloons if spotted and to report them to authorities.

The announcement came hours after Seoul’s military said it was on alert for possibly more trash-carrying balloons arriving from North Korea, a potential response to the propaganda balloons sent this week by activists in the South.

The Seoul city government, as well as the Gyeonggi province, also sent a similar text alert to residents on Saturday, warning about the balloons.

North Korea sent hundreds of balloons in two waves last week with bags of trash into the South, describing them as a response to anti-Pyongyang propaganda balloons sent the other way by South Korean activists.

Pyongyang announced a halt to the balloons last Sunday but days later, a South Korean group called “Fighters for Free North Korea” said it on Thursday had sent 10 balloons with USB thumb drives containing K-pop music and 200,000 leaflets against the North’s leader Kim.

Another group, comprising North Korean defectors, also said it had sent 10 balloons on Friday with 100 radios, 200,000 anti-Pyongyang leaflets, and USB thumb drives containing a speech by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol.

North Korea had said it would respond with “waste paper and rubbish” a hundred times the amount if more South Korean leaflets were sent.

Last year, South Korea’s constitutional court struck down a 2020 law that