North Korean leader’s sister warns of ‘gruesome’ price for leaflets, balloons from South

SEOUL, July 16 (UPI) -- Kim Yo Jong , the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un , gave a "stern warning" to South Korea for allowing defectors to send balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets and other items across the border, threatening "gruesome" consequences.

In a statement carried by state-run Korean Central News Agency, Kim claimed that 29 large balloons sent from the South were found in border areas and points farther inland on Tuesday morning. Blockades and disposal operations caused an inconvenience to residents, she said.

"It seems that the situation we cannot overlook is coming," Kim said. "We give the scum a stern warning again. They should be ready for paying a gruesome and dear price."

Kim added that Pyongyang will change its method of response if the defector groups continue their "crude and dirty play."

She issued a similar warning Sunday, saying that "filthy leaflets and articles of South Korean trash" were found in more than a dozen locations and incinerated. Images released in state-run media showed leaflets and a package of cold medicine being burned.

The statement was the latest in a series of back-and-forth provocations that have raised tensions across the inter-Korean border.

Over the past several weeks, North Korea has sent hundreds of balloons filled with trash , manure and discarded clothes into the South. Seoul officials said that parasites such as roundworms and threadworms, believed to have originated in human excrement, were detected in the balloons' payloads.

The North's launches come as a response to the longstanding practice of North Korean defectors floating balloons with anti-Pyongyang messages over the border.

Last month, activist group Fighters for a Free North Korea said it sent 20 balloons carrying some 300,000 leaflets, USB drives containing South Korean media and U.S. dollars.

The DMZ separating the two Koreas has also been the site of multiple border incursions in recent weeks, with North Korean troops crossing the military demarcation line while doing construction work along frontline areas.

Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the soldiers have been clearing land, laying mines, reinforcing tactical roads and installing structures that appear to be anti-tank barriers at several locations.

On each occasion, the South Korean military fired warning shots and the North's soldiers returned to their side of the border.