The South Korean army issued evacuation orders this Friday for the islands of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeonglocated off the North Korean coast in the Yellow Sea, after Pyongyang fired about 200 artillery rounds in nearby areas that did not cause damage to the population.
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The island of Yeonpyeong, which has about 1,700 inhabitants and is located in the Yellow Sea about 115 kilometers west of Seoul and just 10 from the North Korean coast, It is located on the disputed western maritime border between both countries and was bombed by Pyongyang in November 2010, costing the lives of two of its neighbors and two South Korean soldiers.
“The North Korean army fired more than 200 roundss between 09:00 and 11:00 (between 7 and 9 pm on Thursday in Colombia), being Friday, January 5 in the area of Cape Jangsan, north of Baengnyeong Island, and Cape Sanseong, north of Yeonpyeong Island,” the South Korean General Staff (JCS) reported in a statement sent to the media.
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“No damage has been caused to civilians or the army and the point of impact is located north of the NLL“, indicates the text in reference to the acronym of the Northern Limit Line, a dividing line in the Yellow Sea (called the West Sea in the two Koreas) that Pyongyang rejects and which has been the scene of numerous brawls, including the bombing of Yeonpyeong at the hands of the North that cost the lives of four southerners in 2010.
An official from the Yeongpyeong City Hall cited by the Yonhap agency assured that two evacuation broadcasts were made, at 12:02 and 12:30 local time (around 10:30 pm in Colombia), by order of a military unit.
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The official stated that The army spoke of the need to implement “maritime action” around the island due to “North Korean provocations.”
On November 23, 2010, some live-fire maneuvers that the South Korean navy was carrying out in the vicinity of the island were responded to with dozens of artillery rounds fired from the North Korean coast on Yeonpyeong.
The episode destroyed several buildings and left 18 injured in addition to the four victims mortals mentioned.
Yeonpyeong is located in front of the so-called Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the Yellow Sea (called the West Sea in the two Koreas), drawn by the United Nations to avoid new clashes after the signing of the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953, but rejected by North Korea, which defends that the divide should be located further south.
The clashes around the NLL between the armies of the two Koreas, which are technically still at war as the aforementioned armistice has not been replaced by a peace agreement, have left more than 50 dead, mainly military, on both sides in the last 20 years.
In that area, the southern corvette ROKS Cheonan was also sunk by a North Korean torpedo and 46 of its crew lost their lives. The recent episode illustrates the renewed increase in military tensions between the two Koreas after Pyongyang announced in November that it was suspending a 2018 bilateral military agreement that sought to reduce tension in border areas and that, among other things, prohibited exercises with fire. real around the divide.
EFE
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