North Korea fires artillery shells near South Korean islands

SEOUL: North Korea fired an artillery barrage near two South Korean border islands on Friday, Seoul´s defence ministry said, prompting a live-fire drill by the South´s military.

Residents of the two islands were ordered to evacuate to shelters and ferries were suspended amid one of the most serious military escalations on the peninsula since Pyongyang fired shells at one of the islands in 2010.

North Korea´s military said it had conducted a naval live-fire drill as a “natural countermeasure” against South Korean threats, according to a statement on the official Korean Central News Agency.

Seoul´s defence ministry said the rival military fired more than 200 rounds of artillery shells near Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong, two sparsely populated islands situated just south of a defacto maritime border between the two sides.

It said the shells landed in a buffer zone created under a 2018 tension-reducing deal, which fell apart in November after the North launched a spy satellite.

Resuming artillery fire in the buffer zone “is a provocative act that threatens peace on the Korean Peninsula and escalates tensions”, Seoul´s defence minister Shin Won-sik said.

In response, Seoul´s military will take “immediate, strong, and final retaliation -- we must back peace with overwhelming force”, he added.

North Korea´s military warned Seoul should not commit “a provocation under the pretext of so-called counteraction”, according to KCNA. It threatened the North would “show tough counteraction on an unprecedented level”.

It said the shells fired did not even have “an indirect effect” on Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong.

Pyongyang´s major ally and benefactor China called for “restraint” from all sides.

Yeonpyeong, which has around 2,000 residents, is about 115 kilometres (70 miles) west of Seoul. Baengnyeong, with a population of 4,900, is about 210-kms west of Seoul.