(Seoul) Seoul has ordered the evacuation of residents from Yeonpyeong Island, some 10 kilometers from North Korea, after Pyongyang fired around 200 artillery shells off its west coast, Seoul said on Friday. South Korean Ministry of Defense.
“About 200 artillery shells were fired by North Korea (near) Yeonpyeong Island,” a South Korean Defense Ministry official said at a press conference. Officials on the island also told AFP that its residents had been ordered to evacuate.
“The North Korean military carried out more than 200 shots today between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. (12 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern Time) in areas of Jangsan-got in northern Baengnyeong Island and in the north […] from Yeonpyeong Island,” a Defense Ministry official said at a news conference.
Local authorities on Yeonpyeong Island told AFP that civilians had been ordered to evacuate as a “preventative measure”.
The South Korean island of Yeonpyeong is located in the Yellow Sea, about 80 kilometers west of Incheon and 12 kilometers south of the coast of North Korea’s Hwanghae province.
In 2010, Pyongyang fired 170 artillery shells at Yeonpyeong Island, killing four people, including two civilians, in the first North Korean attack against civilians since the Korean War (1950-1953).
The two Koreas began a process of rapprochement in 2018, characterized by three meetings between Kim Jong-un and the South Korean president at the time, Moon Jae-in.
But relations between the two Koreas deteriorated to a low point this year after Pyongyang’s launch of a spy satellite, which prompted Seoul to partially suspend a 2018 military deal aimed at defusing tensions.
At the end of a meeting of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea in late December, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered the acceleration of military preparations for a “war” that could “be started at anytime” on the peninsula.
In 2023, North Korea conducted a record number of ballistic missile tests, in violation of numerous UN resolutions prohibiting it.
The country also engraved its status as a nuclear power in its Constitution, and successfully tested the Hwasong-18, the most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in its arsenal, capable of reaching the United States.