North Korea has launched more balloons carrying rubbish towards its southern neighbour, South Korea’s military has said.
Earlier this week, the government of Kim Jong Un flew hundreds of balloons filled with debris and manure in the direction of South Korea.
Kim Yo Jong, the leader’s sister, said on Wednesday that her country was making good on a threat to “scatter mounds of wastepaper and filth”.
It was in response to leafleting campaigns by South Korean activists, she added.
Shin Won-sik, South Korea’s defence minister, has described it as “unimaginably petty and low-grade behaviour”.
The country’s defence ministry did not say how many balloons had been detected – or had landed – in the latest wave.
Members of the public are advised to beware of falling debris and not to touch objects suspected to be from the north.
In the capital, Seoul, the city council sent text messages saying unidentified objects – suspected to be arriving from North Korea – were being detected in skies near the city.
From Tuesday night into Wednesday, some 260 North Korean balloons were found in parts of South Korea.
They were carrying various types of rubbish and manure but no chemical, biological or radioactive materials, the South Korean military said.
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On Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong ridiculed a South Korean military statement demanding the North stop its “inhumane and vulgar activity”.
She said the North was merely exercising its freedom of expression – an apparent reference to South Korea saying it could not stop anti-North Korean activists from flying leaflets across the border as it would restrict their freedom of expression.
“Once you experience how nasty and exhausting it feels to go around picking up dirty filth, you will realise that you shouldn’t talk about freedom of expression so easily when it comes to [leafletting] in border areas,” she said.
“We will make it clear that we will respond with 10 more times the amount of filth to what the [South Koreans] spray to us in the future.”
