South Korea issued an alert this Friday (5), ordering residents to leave two islands close to the border with North Korea, after artillery shots were fired that fell within a strip that separates the two. countries.
In a statement, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) stated that more than 200 shots were recorded in two hours on the west coast by Pyongyang, near the Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong islands, where around 7,000 people live.
Two emergency orders were issued to the population of Yeonpyeong at around 12:00 and 12:30, local time (0:00 and 0:30, in Brasília).
“We announced the evacuation after receiving a call from a military unit saying it was carrying out a sea attack on Yeongpyeong Island as there was a situation of North Korean provocation,” a South Korean official told the state news agency. Yonhap.
A spokesman for the Seoul Armed Forces stated that “this is an act of provocation that intensifies tension and threatens peace on the Korean peninsula.” In response to Pyongyang's attacks, the South Korean Army carried out new live-fire exercises in the Yellow Sea.
A statement issued by South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the Marine Corps' 6th Brigade on Baeknyeong Island and the military unit on Yeonpyeong Island fired at a simulated target at sea, an exercise that was supervised from from a control center by Defense Minister Shin Won-sik.
The exercise by South Korean troops began at 3pm (local time, 3am on Thursday), the exercise involved K9 self-propelled guns and K1E1 tanks, the JCS said. “After North Korea unilaterally declared the complete suspension of the September 19 military agreement, it resumed artillery fire in the area this morning, which is a provocation that threatens peace on the Korean Peninsula and increases tension,” he said. Shin, according to the statement.
The minister referred to the military agreement signed by the two countries on September 19, 2018, which was designed to reduce tension in border areas and which, among other things, prohibited live fire maneuvers near the division.
“The maritime fire exercise seeks to respond to North Korea's provocation,” the statement added, noting that no other “unusual movements” by the North Korean military were detected.
The South Korean islands of Baeknyeong and Yeonpyeong lie opposite the so-called Northern Limit Line (NLL), which serves as the disputed maritime border between the two countries in the Yellow Sea (called the West Sea in Korean).
Drawn by the United Nations to avoid new clashes after the signing of the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953, this line is rejected by North Korea, which argues that the border should be further south.
The maritime border has been the scene of several clashes between the countries, including the North Korean bombing of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010, which killed four South Koreans.
The two South Korean detachments that responded this Friday with live-fire exercises are, in fact, the Northwest Islands Defense Command group, created by Seoul in 2011, after the previously mentioned attack on Yeonpyeong.
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