South Korea’s military says North Korea is sending more balloons southward and that they likely contain trash.
It would be the latest balloon campaign by North Korea since late May.
According to South Korea, the North sent trash-filled balloons headed south on Monday. South Korea said that the trash included articles with Hello Kitty characters and soil with traces of human feces and parasites.
There was apparently no major damage, and South Korea asked the public to avoid balloons and report any sightings to police.
The balloon launches come within a larger back-and-forth of Cold War-style campaigns between the two countries that sometimes resume during periods of heightened tension.
On Tuesday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson, Lee Sung Joon, warned that the country might restart anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts. According to a written Joint Chiefs of Staff statement, the renewed broadcasts would depend on North Korea’s course of action.
In the past, South Korean activists have sent political leaflets via balloon, and North Korea has sent its own balloons, possibly in response.
North Korea bans most of its people from access to foreign news, making the issue of the broadcasts and leaflets a sensitive tactic.
After a free speech case in South Korea in 2023, officials affirmed that they do not restrict activists from deploying leaflets to the North.
North Korea has relied on the South for chemical fertilizer in its chronic food shortage, aid that was halted in 2007 when Pyongyang increased its weapons development.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol also boarded a visiting U.S. aircraft carrier on Tuesday, making him the first sitting South Korean president to do so since 1994.
According to Yoon, the aircraft will leave on Wednesday, traveling for a trilateral exercise, called the “Freedom Edge,” among South Korea, the United States, and Japan.
North Korea has previously responded to U.S. drills with missile tests.
