North Korea fires artillery shells towards South’s border island
North Korea has launched over 200 rounds of artillery shells off its western coast, directed towards South Korea’s Yeonpyeong island, according to Seoul’s military.
Responding to the provocation, South Korea instructed civilians on the island to take shelter and conducted its live-fire drills.
The South denounced the action as a “provocative act.” In 2010, North Korean artillery targeted Yeonpyeong Island, resulting in four casualties.
The recent artillery shells, fired between 09:00 and 11:00 local time, did not breach South Korean territory, landing in the buffer zone. While causing no harm, the incident was condemned for threatening peace on the Korean peninsula and escalating tensions.
Pyongyang had previously issued warnings about fortifying its military capabilities, preparing for a potential conflict that could erupt at any moment on the peninsula. Authorities on nearby islands, Baengnyeong and Daecheong, also advised civilians to take refuge.
“North Korea resuming its artillery fire drills inside the non-hostility zone this morning is an act of provocation which threatens peace on the Korean Peninsula and raises tension,” South Korea’s Defence Minister Shin Won-sik said in a statement on Friday.
“Our military must assume the readiness to completely wipe out the enemy so that they wouldn’t dare another provocation, and to back up the pace through strength,” he said.
His ministry said it did not observe any movements from the North during South Korea’s drills.
The latest incident comes months after North Korea fully suspended a military deal with the South that had been aimed at improving relations.
The deal started to sour after Pyongyang claimed to have successfully launched a spy satellite into space in November. This led to South Korea partly suspending the agreement, saying it would resume surveillance flights along the border.
Afterward, Pyongyang said it would withdraw all measures “taken to prevent military conflict in all spheres including ground, sea and air”, and deploy “more powerful armed forces and new-type military hardware” in the border region.
But North Korea had violated the pact multiple times in the two years before, launching missiles and firing artillery rounds into the sea in the South’s direction. The last time North Korea fired artillery shells into the sea was in December 2022, with nine such incidents happening in that year alone.
Some analysts therefore argue that Pyongyang officially withdrawing from the deal might not make much of a difference.
“Because North Korea was not adhering to the agreement in the first place, the possibility of limited collision has always been there”, said Jo-Bee Yun of the Korea Institute for Defence Analysis.
Yeonpyeong island, home to a military base and a small civilian population of about 2,000 people, lies 3km (2 miles) from the disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea and 12km from the North Korean coast.
It has been the scene of inter-Korean naval clashes over the years.
In 2010 – two soldiers and two civilians were killed after North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells towards the island.
