North Korea blames balloons from South for COVID spread

KOREA: North Korea has long confronted an array of fearsome weaponry across its southern border, but the device that appears to unnerve the totalitarian regime is the humble balloon.

For a country that has sought for decades to isolate its population from the outside world, balloons sent from neighbouring South Korea represent an unacceptable incursion — and even a bearer of Covid-19.

In recent weeks Pyongyang has furiously denounced the resumption of balloon flights carrying items ranging from anti-regime leaflets and electronic devices to coronavirus aid including masks and pain relief tablets.

Park Sang-hak, a human-rights activist, North Korean defector and the organiser of balloon flights into the East Asian country, said last month that he had used 20 balloons to fly 20,000 masks, 15,000 Tylenol pills and 30,000 vitamin C supplements over the border from Pocheon near the demilitarised zone dividing the Korean peninsula.

Park has since organised two more rounds of flights, the latest of which carried a large banner blaming North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for May’s COVID outbreak.

This month, North Korean state media attributed a large-scale coronavirus outbreak in the country to “alien things coming by wind” and landing near the border with South Korea.

According to Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the source of the outbreak was an 18-year-old soldier and a five-year-old child who both came into contact with objects near the border.

– THE FINANCIAL TIMES