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The incident took place when a southern border guard post located in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) received multiple bullet wounds from the North, to which it responded by firing two rounds of warning and with a public address message, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported. South Korean (JCS) in a statement.
The incident did not leave any wounded among the South Korean soldiers on duty who heard the shots and found bullet marks at the border post located in the town of Cheorwon, in the central area of the DMZ, according to the same source.
A South Korean Army official told local agency Yonhap that the incident does not appear to be an intentional provocation from the North, although he added that it does violate bilateral military agreements signed in 2018 to end hostilities on the peninsula in the context of the detente process. inter-korean.
The exchange of fire is in fact the first event of this type since the thaw began between North and South, a process promoted by South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and which is stalled after the celebration of 3 summits between the leaders. from both countries.
In addition, it took place a day after the North Korean leader reappeared in the state propaganda media after a 21-day public absence, during which there was speculation about the alleged severity of his health condition and even his death.
After detecting the shooting at 7:41 am, local time on Sunday (5:41 pm on Saturday in Colombia), the Army of the South sent a message to its counterpart in the North asking for an explanation, which for the moment has not had Pyonyang’s response, according to the aforementioned official.
The crossfire occurred at a time when there was a thick fog in the area and around the time that North soldiers usually perform a changing of the guard, according to the South Korean senior military official, who also noted that no detected unusual troop movements across the border.
“We are taking steps through inter-Korean communication channels to understand the situation in detail and avoid further incidents. We also maintain a necessary posture of military preparation, ”said the JCS in its note.
In previous years, there had been several exchanges of fire in the DMZ between the Armies of both countries at times of a rebound in regional tension, the last one in 2017 and coinciding with the spectacular desertion to the South of a North Korean soldier.
The DMZ, a strip of about 250 kilometers long and 4 wide, remains one of the areas with the largest military presence in the world, with some 2 hundred guard posts from both countries, in addition to around one million buried mines in the area.
The two Koreas are still technically at war, since the armed conflict that confronted them between 1950 and 1953 was never replaced by a peace treaty.
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