More than 200 artillery rounds were launched into the sea by North Korea on 5th January along a tense maritime border with South Korea, according to a military official. The residents of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong islands were told to seek shelter because of an unidentified “situation.”
The Ministry of Defense declined to disclose whether the order was a result of the country’s reaction drills or artillery fire from the North. However, islanders received a text message confirming “naval fire” to be carried out by the South Korean military starting at 3 p.m. (0600 GMT). The information was verified by an island official.
According to an official on Yeonpyeong island, which is located just south of the contentious Northern Limit Line (NLL) sea boundary, the South Korean military sought the evacuation, prompting the island’s population to take refuge there. South Korea’s military said in a news briefing that there was no civilian or military injury inflicted by North Korea’s firing.
Lee Sung-joon, a spokesman for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff declared, “The North Korean military conducted over 200 rounds of firing today from around 09:00 to 11:00 (1200 to 0200 GMT) in the areas of Jangsan-got in the northern part of Baengnyeong Island and the northern areas of Yeonpyeong Island. This is an act of provocation that escalates tension and threatens peace on the Korean peninsula.”
He added, “We sternly warn that North Korea bears full responsibility for this escalating crisis and strongly urge them to immediately cease these actions. Our military closely tracks and monitors the situation in close coordination with the United States, and will take appropriate measures in response to North Korea’s provocations.”
The officer informed that all of the North Korean artillery projectiles had landed on the northern side of a disputed maritime border and that the South Korean military, along with the U.S. military has been keeping an eye on Kim Jong Un’s government near its coastline.
Civilians have been ordered to evacuate, according to local officials on Yeonpyeong island, who described the directive as a “preventative measure” to AFP. Yeonpyeong Island in South Korea is located in the Yellow Sea. It is situated 12 kilometres south of the Hwanghae Province’s shoreline in North Korea and about 80 kilometres west of Incheon and is home to at least 2,000 individuals as well as military personnel stationed there. It is situated around 120 km (75 miles) west of Seoul and reaching the area requires more than 2.5 hours of ferry travel.
An evacuation order was also announced by the Baengnyeong Island authorities which has a population of around 4,900 and is far to the west of Yeonpyeong. A district administrator at Baengnyeong island told AFP, “We are making the evacuation announcements at the moment.” He also mentioned that he received word that the South Korean military would be conducting a naval drill soon. Kim Jin-soo, who lives in Baengnyeong island remarked, “At first I thought it was the shells fired by our military but was told later it was by North Korea.”
In November 2010, Pyongyang launched a volley of 170 artillery projectiles onto Yeonpyeong Island which killed four people and two of them were civilians in what was the first attack on a populated area by the North Koreans since the 1950–53 Korean War. After the dictator test-fired multiple highly advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles and cemented the nation’s nuclear power status in the constitution, ties between the two Koreas are at an all-time low.
Kim Jong Un demanded that the nation’s military arsenal be increased ahead of a battle that he threatened could “break out at any time” and threatened to launch a nuclear strike on the South at Pyongyang’s crucial year-end strategy talks. According to KCNA’s version of the meeting, he instructed his armed forces to retain the “overwhelming war response capability” and accused the United States of posing “various forms of military threat”.
When the South announced it would begin border drills in November, the North proclaimed the agreement that the two leaders of Korea had made in 2018 to defuse tensions and prevent an unintentional war from breaking out as null and void. Military exercises along the border, including those along the east and west shores of the sea, were to end, as agreed upon by the two sides.
