North Korea has launched hundreds of waste-filled balloons to South Korea, covering the entire country. The balloons have been found from the border regions of Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces to distant locations like Gyeryongdae in South Chungcheong Province, where South Korean military headquarters are situated, and even in Geochang, South Gyeongsang Province, beyond the Baekdudaegan mountain range.
According to the South Korean military, North Korea deployed large balloons filled with waste over a period of about 10 hours from the night of May 28 to the afternoon of May 29. This comes two days after the North denounced a leaflet launch by a South Korean anti-North Korean group as a “provocation” and announced on May 26 that it would distribute “trash and filth packets.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff said that “as of 4 p.m. on May 29, we have confirmed around 260 balloons sent south, the largest number ever launched by North Korea in a single day.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong, vice director of the Workers’ Party of Korea, described the release of waste balloons as “the people’s expression of freedom” in a statement on the night of May 29, and sarcastically asked for the South Korean government’s understanding, mocking Seoul’s stance that “the anti-North Korean leaflets are protected under freedom of expression.” She further described them as a “sincere gift of goodwill” to the “ghosts of liberal democracy,” suggesting that South Korea should “keep picking them up.”
The balloons contained bags filled with animal manure, cigarette butts, and paper waste. There have been no reports of regime propaganda leaflets attached to the balloons. This marks the first such balloon launch since North Korea ceased the practice around the time of the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018, resuming it after about six years. The JCS sternly warned North Korea to “immediately cease such crude acts.”
North Korea also conducted a GPS jamming attack in the western sea region early on May 29. The South Korean military reported no casualties or property damage from the balloons or the GPS jamming. Observers suggest that North Korea’s “gray zone” provocations are intensifying, aiming to disrupt South Korean society through non-military means. A government official said, “They want to test whether our citizens and government are unsettled by these psychological and hybrid threats.”
Reports of balloon debris and waste began flooding in from border areas such as Dongducheon and Paju in Gyeonggi Province starting from the night of May 28. Balloons were also discovered in Geochang, South Gyeongsang Province, nearly 300 kilometers away from the border. A military source said, “We had anticipated threats like a ‘dirty bomb’ attack with radioactive material, but actual trash being sent over was unexpected.”
Residents in Gyeonggi Province experienced fear due to disaster alerts sent late on the night of May 28th. The alerts mentioned unidentified objects presumed to be North Korean leaflets, but the ambiguous wording and the inclusion of the English phrase “Air raid Preliminary warning” led to confusion, with many wondering if an actual war had broken out. Park Da-som, a 36-year-old resident of Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province, said, “When the alarm suddenly went off, I initially thought it was a missing person alert as usual, but it turned out to be about North Korean leaflets, which made me anxious and unable to sleep for a while.”
