SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired artillery shells near the disputed sea boundary off South Korea’s western coast on Friday, prompting the South to conduct its own live-fire drills in the latest escalation of tensions between the rival neighbors.
200 rounds were fired towards the Northern Limit Line, with no damage or injuries reported on the South Korean side, the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said early Friday.
“We detected the artillery firings from Jangsan Cape and Deungsan Cape, both in the North’s southwestern coastal areas, from 9:00 a.m. (7 p.m. ET) to 11 a.m (9 p.m. ET),” it said.
An evacuation was ordered in the bordering island of Yeonpyeong Island but it was unclear if the order was related to the firing. Four South Koreans were killed when the island came under North Korean bombardment in 2010.
It comes just a day after a joint naval drill between South Korea and the United States had ended.
The front-line maritime firing by North Korea was the first of its kind in about a year, with the latest being in Dec. 2022, off the eastern coast of the peninsula.
Calling it an “act of provocation,” the JCS said the live-fire threatened peace in the peninsula, especially after North Korea unliterally scrapped a 2018 military accord last year that was meant to ease front-line tensions.
Under the fragile 2018 agreement, the Koreas are required to halt live-fire exercises and aerial surveillance in the no-fly and buffer zones along their border.
But tensions have soared since Pyeongyang launched a spy satellite in November which prompted South to restore aerial surveillance and later the North to restore the dismantled front-line guard posts.
Seoul is now tracking and monitoring activity in close coordination with the United States and will “conduct corresponding measures to North Korea’s provocations,” JCS said, urging North Korea to cease the provocations.
Stella Kim reported from Seoul and Mithil Aggarwal reported from Hong Kong.