South Korea incensed

North Korea sends garbage and feces in balloons

(Bild: AFP/APA/South Korean Defence Ministry/Handout)

According to the South Korean military, North Korea has used balloons to send large quantities of garbage across the heavily fortified border to South Korea. According to the report, some of the balloons were even carrying bags that may have contained excrement. So far, around 260 such balloons have been discovered.

Last Sunday, North Korea, under the authoritarian rule of Kim Jong Un, threatened to send "piles of waste paper and dirt" across the border regions. South Korea will realize "how much effort it takes to remove everything", a statement by the vice defence minister said. The measure was a response to the sending of leaflets and garbage from South Korea.

(Bild: AFP/South Korea Defense Ministry)

Repeated propaganda campaigns
For years, organizations of North Korean refugees in South Korea have repeatedly carried out propaganda campaigns at the border, sending out large gas balloons with leaflets calling for the overthrow of the leadership in Pyongyang, among other things. North Korea has repeatedly reacted angrily to such actions. The leaflet campaigns are controversial in South Korea. North Korea itself has also sent propaganda leaflets across the border to South Korea in the past.

Under the former liberal South Korean government, a law came into force in 2021 banning the sending of leaflets and other objects along the military demarcation line between the two countries. The Constitutional Court lifted the ban last year, arguing that it disproportionately restricted freedom of expression.