The South Korean Army reported this Wednesday that more than 90 balloons sent by North Korea filled with wastea few days after Pyongyang threatened to respond to the sending of anti-regime propaganda by activists from the South.

The balloons began to be detected late on Tuesday, when the Army began to see unidentified flying objects in border areas from the South Korean provinces of Gyeonggi and Gangwon, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

Many of the balloons have not fallen yet, but those that have They contain “garbage and filth”according to a statement from the JCS, which has found what it believes are timers incorporated into the balloons to make them pop.

The balloons have so far fallen in different towns in Gyeonggi and Gangwon, but also in the Guro district in Seoul or in the central province of South Chungcheong, areas that are further away from the inter-Korean border. The Army has advised residents of these areas to do not touch the balloons or their contents and that they inform military or police authorities when they find them.

For years, human rights organizations – mainly led by North Korean defectors – in the South have sent leaflets against the North in balloons. On Sunday, North Korean Vice Minister of National Defense, Kim Kang-il, published a statement collected by KCNA in which he denounced recent balloon shipments by activists and assured that he would respond with a “eye for eye action”.

“Soon piles of used paper and waste will be scattered through the border areas and interior of the Republic of Korea [nombre oficial del Sur] and thus they will directly experience how much effort is required to clean them,” the text added.

The two Koreas remain technically at war, since the conflict that confronted them between 1950 and 1953 was closed with a ceasefire and not a peace treaty. At the beginning of the year, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-undeclared South Korea the main national enemy and removed the goal of reunification from the Constitution.

Since then, the regime, which has been refusing to resume dialogue on disarmament for years, has removed a multitude of symbolic elements in the country that called for the need to seek peaceful reunification, which indicates an important diplomatic turn that has also been accompanied by an intense approach to Russia in the last year.