North Korea sending trash balloons again as tension grows with South Korea

Kim Jong-un's sister threatened that South Korea would be 'picking up waste paper without rest' if anti-North Korean activists don't stop sending leaflets across the border.

Less than a week after North Korea said it would stop sending balloons carrying trash to South Korea, the authoritarian state has resumed the unorthodox campaign.

In response to the now weeks-long balloon conflict, South Korea suspended a 2018 military pact signed with the North and has resumed loudspeaker broadcasts, blaring hit singles by K-pop band BTS and foreign news across the border.

Since late May, North Korea has sent over 1,000 balloons that have rained trash and manure over South Korea. North Korea’s vice-defence minister said the provocation was a “tit-for-tat” move in retaliation for South Korean activists sending balloons across the border with leaflets criticizing North Korea’s human rights abuses.

North Korea is extremely sensitive to these leaflets because most of its 26 million people have no official access to foreign TV and radio.

After sending over 700 balloons, North Korean vice-defence minister Kim Kang Il announced on June 2 that the balloon activities would cease and that North Korea had proven its point to the South. But he warned the campaign would resume if South Korean activists continued to send leaflets.

Undeterred by North Korea’s warnings, a South Korean activist group led by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak said it launched 10 balloons across the border carrying 200,00 anti-North Korean leaflets, U.S. dollar bills and USB sticks with K-pop songs and K-drama TV shows on Thursday.

South Korean media reported another activist group also flew balloons with 200,000 propaganda leaflets toward North Korea on Friday.

As promised, North Korea resumed sending balloons carrying trash to South Korea in retaliation for the leaflets.