North Korea sends another wave of trash balloons into South Korea

North Korea has yet again sent hundreds of trash-laden balloons towards its southern neighbour.

This is a sign of reigniting a tit-for-tat exchange after South Korean activists sent floating packages in the other direction carrying K-pop and K-dramas on USB sticks, according to Yahoo News.

About 330 balloons carrying bags of trash had been sent by North Korea since June 8 night, of which about 80 have landed in South Korea, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said on June 9.

Waste paper and plastic were found in the packages and there were no substances hazardous to safety, the JCS said.

Around 1,060 balloons from the North have made it into South Korean territory since May 28, according to a CNN tally.

South Korea’s National Security Council held an emergency meeting on June 9 to discuss responses to the latest wave of balloons.

Last week, Pyongyang claimed to have sent a total of 3,500 balloons carrying 15 tonnes of trash to its neighbor, according to state media KCNA, citing North Korea’s Vice Defense Minister Kim Kang Il.

Seoul will resume broadcasting propaganda messages through loudspeakers over the heavily armed border, the presidential office said in a statement on June 9.

South Korea’s military once championed the broadcasts as part of psychological warfare against the North, until it withdrew the equipment following a 2018 summit between the neighbours.

The countries have been cut off from each other since the Korean War ended with an armistice in 1953. They are still technically at war, and the balloon feud has been going on for decades.

In May, North Korea responded by sending its own giant balloons south – containing trash, soil, pieces of paper and plastic, and what South Korean authorities described as “filth.”

Kim said the balloons were “strictly a responsive act” to South Korea’s years-long practice of sending balloons with anti-North Korea leaflets the other way.