North Korea fires more than 200 artillery shells near South Korean islands forcing evacuations

Seoul says North Korea’s firing of artillery rounds an ‘act of provocation that escalates tension and threatens peace’

Residents in two South Korean islands rushed to evacuate on military orders on Friday after North Korea fired more than 200 artillery rounds into a tense maritime patch in the Korean peninsula.

The artillery firing by the Kim Jong-un-led military on Friday was near a disputed boundary with South Korea and violated a fragile 2018 military agreement, forcing immediate such response from Seoul.

A text message warning of “naval fire” to be conducted by South Korean troops from 3pm local time was sent to residents and was confirmed by an island official.

South Korea’s military conducted “corresponding” live firing drills in response to North Korea’s firing of artillery rounds, the South’s defence ministry said.

According to an official on Yeonpyeong island, the evacuation was ordered at the request of the South Korean military. The island sits just south of the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL) sea border.

Confirming the firing into the waters north of their disputed western sea boundary, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff called the North Korean drills a provocation.

"This is an act of provocation that escalates tension and threatens peace on the Korean peninsula," a spokesperson for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Officials from the South Korea’s military informed the village there was firing at sea by the South Korean military after "a situation" near the border. It is not immediately clear whether it was a drill or had some other cause.

South Korea will take a corresponding step, the JCS said, but didn’t elaborate.

No immediate civilian or military damage in the artillery firing by North Korea has been reported so far, South Korea’s military officials said in a news briefing.

The residents of the second island, Baengnyeong island which is far to the west of the first one, were also asked to evacuate and head to the shelters, a village official said.

Both the islands are near the sea and inter-Korea border.

The firing drills, the first in about a year, have ratcheted up tensions between the two Korean nations already facing heat in the region.

Residents of three South Korean islands have been advised to take shelter amid an anticipated response from North Korea to the afternoon fire drills.

The sea boundary shared between the two Koreas has been the site of several bloody inter-Korean sea battles since 1999. North Korea also launched artillery strikes on Yeonpyeong island, killing four South Koreans, in 2010.

Under their 2018 agreement, South and North are required to halt live-fire exercises and aerial surveillance in no-fly and buffer zones that they established along their border.

The deal now faces an imminent danger of collapse as the two nations have been at loggerheads after North fired its first military spy satellite launch in November.