New tensions on the border between the two Koreas. Seoul ordered the evacuation of residents from Yeonpyeong Island, located some 10 km from North Korea, after Pyongyang fired some 200 artillery shells off its west coast, it said on Friday (January 5). the South Korean Ministry of Defense.
“About 200 artillery shells were fired by North Korea (near) Yeonpyeong Island,” a South Korean Defense Ministry official said at a press conference. Officials on the island also told AFP that its residents had been asked to evacuate. The South Korean island of Yeonpyeong is located in the Yellow Sea, about 80 km west of Incheon and 12 km south of the coast of North Korea’s Hwanghae province.
“An act of provocation”
Residents of the South Korean island of Baengnyeong (northwest) were also asked to evacuate, local officials told AFP on Friday, South Korean Defense. “We are making evacuation announcements at the moment,” a district official on Baengnyeong Island told AFP, adding that he had been informed of an upcoming naval exercise by the South Korean military.
Pyongyang’s artillery barrage near two South Korean border islands constitutes a “provocative act”, Seoul said on Friday, urging its neighbor to put an end to it and warning that it will respond with “appropriate” measures. . “This is a provocative act that threatens peace on the Korean Peninsula,” the South Korean Defense Ministry wrote in a statement, urging North Korea to “immediately cease these actions.”
Yeonpyeong Island already targeted
In 2010, Pyongyang fired 170 artillery shells at Yeonpyeong Island, killing four people, including two civilians, in the first North Korean attack against civilians since the Korean War (1950-1953).
The two Koreas began a process of rapprochement in 2018, characterized by three meetings between Kim Jong Un and the South Korean president at the time, Moon Jae-in. But relations between the two Koreas deteriorated to a low point this year after Pyongyang’s launch of a spy satellite, which prompted Seoul to partially suspend a 2018 military deal aimed at defusing tensions.
At the end of a meeting of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea in late December, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the acceleration of military preparations for a “war” that could “be launched at any time.” moment” on the peninsula. In 2023, North Korea conducted a record number of ballistic missile tests, in violation of numerous UN resolutions prohibiting it. The country also engraved its status as a nuclear power in its Constitution, and successfully tested the Hwasong-18, the most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in its arsenal, capable of reaching the United States.