South Korea and North Korea had an exchange of live artillery fires on Monday across their disputed western sea border. The incident forced some South Korean residents living in border island Baengnyeong to leave their house and take shelter. There were no reports of injuries, fatalities, and damage to properties.
“If the North takes issue with our legitimate returning of fire and uses it to make yet another provocation towards our sea and islands, we will make a resolute retaliation,” South Korea’s defense ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok said, confirming that their government fired more than 300 rounds.
“The North fired some 500 shots… and some 100 of them landed in waters south of the border,” he added, referring to the provocative live-fire exercises made by North Korea near the South Korean waters boundary around three hours before the South fired back.
On Monday morning, North Korea issued an unusual announcement to South Korea via a faxed message about its live-fire exercise at Yellow Sea that will happen later that day. South Korea warned that an immediate retaliation shall take place if any shells will cross the border. The military exercise, which started at 12.15pm (03.15 GMT), raised concerns of possible nuclear tests in the future.
So far, the North has conducted three nuclear tests, and the most recent one (and the most powerful) was done in February 2013. Last week, Pyongyang launched two mid-range ballistic missiles that are capable of hitting Japan. This was highly condemned by UN Security Council, but the communist state later issued a threat of a possible “new type” of nuclear test.
On November 23, 2010, North Korea fired rockets and artillery shells at Yeonpyeong Island, which killed two South Korean marines and two other civilians. This comes after South Korea held military exercises in the said area. The two neighboring countries had several naval clashes back in 1999, 2002 and 2009.
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