Warning shots fired at inter-Korean border as military tensions flare

North Korea said its artillery launches on Monday were in response to the South firing at a merchant ship off the peninsula’s west coast

Their poorly marked sea boundary is a source of long-running skirmishes and violence, including two attacks in 2010 that killed 50 people

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A South Korean helicopter takes part in an ongoing military exercise last week aimed at testing the country’s readiness against the North’s nuclear and missile threats. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 8:44am, 24 Oct 2022Updated: 2:49pm, 24 Oct 2022

The rival Koreas exchanged warning shots along their disputed western sea boundary – a scene of past bloodshed and naval battles – in a development that raises worry of possible clashes after North Korea’s recent barrage of weapons tests.

South Korea’s navy broadcast warnings and fired warning shots to repel a North Korean merchant ship that violated the sea boundary at 3.42am, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

North Korea’s military said its coastal defence units responded by firing 10 rounds of artillery warning shots towards its territorial waters, where “naval enemy movement was detected”. It accused a South Korean naval ship of intruding into North Korean waters on the pretext of cracking down on an unidentified ship.

Commuters watch a television report about North Korea firing artillery shots into maritime buffer zones near the inter-Korean border last week. Photo EPA-EFE

There were no reports of fighting, but the sea boundary off the Korean peninsula’s west coast is a source of long-running animosities.

The American-led UN command drew a boundary at the end of the 1950-53 Korean war, but North Korea insists upon a boundary that encroaches deeply into waters controlled by the South.

Among the deadly events that have happened in the area are the North’s shelling of a South Korean island and its alleged torpedoing of a South Korean navy ship, both in 2010. The two attacks killed 50 South Koreans.

Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank, said it was unimaginable for a North Korean merchant vessel to have crossed the de facto maritime border between the two rivals without being instructed to do so.