SEOUL:Â North Korea fired more than 200 artillery shells into the sea on Friday (Jan 5), Seoul’s defence ministry said, while residents of two South Korean islands were ordered to evacuate due to an unknown “situation.”
“This is a provocative act that threatens the peace on the Korean Peninsula,” the defence ministry said in a statement, urging Pyongyang to “immediately cease these actions” and warning they would take “appropriate measures in response”.
The artillery firing by North Korea caused no civilian or military damage in the South, South Korea’s military said in a news briefing.
The defence ministry did not confirm if the evacuation orders were prompted by the North’s artillery firing or South Korean drills in response.
A text message sent to residents and confirmed by an island official cited “naval fire” to be conducted by South Korean troops from 3pm local time on Friday.
An official on Yeonpyeong island, which sits just south of the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL) sea border, said the evacuation was ordered at the request of the South Korean military.
South Korea’s military told the village there was firing at sea by the South Korean military after “a situation” near the border, the official said. But it was not clear whether it was a drill or had some other cause.
Residents of Baengnyeong island, which lies far to the west of Yeonpyeong and also near the sea border, were also told to evacuate, a village official there said.
In 2010, North Korean artillery fired scores of rounds at Yeonpyeong island, killing four people, including two civilians, in one of the heaviest attacks on its neighbour since the Korean War ended in 1953.
North Korea said at the time it was provoked into the attack by South Korean live-fire drills that dropped shells into its territorial waters.
Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in decades, after Kim Jong Un enshrined the country’s status as a nuclear power into the constitution while test-firing several advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles.
At Pyongyang’s key year-end policy meetings, Kim warned of a nuclear attack on the South and called for a build-up of the country’s military arsenal ahead of armed conflict that he warned could “break out any time”.
Last year, North Korea successfully launched a reconnaissance satellite, after receiving what Seoul claimed was help from Russia in exchange for arms transfers for Ukraine.
Source: CNA
