South Korea resumes anti-Pyongyang loudspeaker broadcasts near border

SEOUL, July 19 (UPI) -- South Korea blasted loudspeakers near border areas with North Korea in response to Pyongyang's latest launch of trash-carrying balloons, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday.

"As our military has issued several stern warnings against North Korea's continued distribution of waste balloons, we have conducted loudspeaker broadcasts against North Korea in areas where waste balloons have been released," the JCS said in a statement sent to reporters. The anti-Pyongyang broadcasts took place over several hours from Thursday evening into early Friday.

The South Korean military detected around 200 balloons sent by the North overnight Thursday, with some 40 balloons landing in northern Gyeonggi Province. Most were carrying paper and contained no safety hazards, the JCS said.

"Our military's future response will depend entirely on North Korea's actions," the JCS added.

The contents of the latest broadcasts were undisclosed, but previous sessions have included K-pop music and South Korean news reports.

Over the past several weeks, Pyongyang has sent more than 2,000 balloons carrying trash , manure and discarded clothes into the South. South Korean officials said that parasites such as roundworms and threadworms, believed to have originated in human excrement, were detected in the balloons' payloads.

Seoul briefly resumed propaganda broadcasts at the DMZ last month in response to the launches, as back-and-forth provocations have raised tensions across the inter-Korean border.

The North claims it is responding in kind to the longstanding practice of defector groups floating balloons with anti-Pyongyang leaflets and USB drives containing South Korean media over the border.

North Korea has reacted with fury in the past to the balloons. In June 2020, Pyongyang severed all communications with Seoul and blew up an inter-Korean liaison office over what it called South Korea's failure to rein in the defectors.

Earlier this week, Kim Yo Jong , the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un , threatened "gruesome" consequences if the launches did not end.

Seoul's military on Wednesday said that North Korea has been ramping up activity in frontline areas of the DMZ in recent months, with soldiers clearing land, erecting barriers and planting tens of thousands of landmines . Defense officials warned of the possibility of mines being swept into the South due to heavy rainfalls or dam releases by the North.