North Korea sends balloons filled with waste and fertilizer to South Korea

North Korea has sent hundreds of balloons containing waste across the border with the South. The South Korean Army General Staff said it had counted about 260 balloons as of Wednesday afternoon (local time), some of which were found hundreds of kilometers south of the demilitarized zone between the two countries.

Underneath the balloons are plastic bags filled with waste, including batteries, empty bottles and even fertilizer. They are also said to have brought leaflets containing North Korean propaganda. Many of the balloons ended up in the border area, but they were also found in the capital, Seoul, and even in the southeastern Gyeongsangnam Province.

South Korea's military leadership described the waste balloons as a violation of international law and urged North Korea to stop its “inhumane and vulgar” activities. In an emergency message, authorities called on the public not to touch the balloons and their payload, but to report any discoveries. The bilingual message caused confusion and some panic, because the English version mentioned the word “air strikes.”

Bibles and K-Pop

North Korean Deputy Defense Minister Kim Kang Il warned a few days ago in a statement distributed by the North's Korean Central News Agency that the South would be buried under “waste paper and rubbish” so that the South Koreans could experience “the amount of work they do.” Takes. “He cleans up the mess.” The campaign comes in response to similar actions by activists in South Korea – many of them people who fled the North – who have been regularly sending balloons across the border for years. They usually transport leaflets, Bibles, money, radios or USB sticks containing news, South Korean movies, and K-pop music. Earlier this month, the conservative activist group Fighters for a Free North Korea said it had launched another twenty such balloons.

Such activities have been a thorn in the side of not only Pyongyang, but also the government in Seoul for years. It would endanger the population of the border region and hinder diplomatic consultations with the North. In 2020, North Korea cut off all communications with the South due to anger over the balloons. Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and known for her insults, attacked the activists, calling them “scum” and “barking mongrel dogs.”

A few months later, South Korea's parliament approved a controversial ban on balloon activities. Activists can now receive heavy fines. But South Korea's Constitutional Court later ruled that the ban constituted an unconstitutional violation of freedom of expression.

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