South Korea to Stop Defectors Sending Aid, Messages to North Korea

Tensions between North Korea and South Korea continue to rise after North Korea suspended communication hotlines with its neighbor over defectors who send propaganda and contraband.

Now, South Korea officials said that the country will take legal action against two organizations that operate in that way.

According to Reuters, North Korea gets enraged when the defectors in the South send material such as anti-North leaflets and rice – usually by balloon over the heavily fortified border or in bottles by sea, and its media has in recent days denounced the “mongrel dogs’’ who do it.

The sister of Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, Kim Yo Jong, said that the defectors are human scum little short of wild animals, adding that North Korea would cut communication with South Korea because of its failure to stop them.

South Korea officials issued a statement on Wednesday saying that the two defector-run groups, Kuensaem Education Center and Fighters for a Free North Korea, had violated the Inter-Korean Exchange and Co-operation Act by sending the leaflets, as well as aid like rice and medicine.

You Sang-key, the South’s Unification Ministry spokesman said:

“The two defector groups have created tension between the two Koreas and caused danger to the border-area resident’ lives and safety.’’

“You can never buy peace with flattery and begging,’’ said Park Sang-hak, a defector who left North Korea 20 years ago and leads the Fighters For Free North Korea as a reply to the criticism from South Korea towards its northern neighbor.

But, South Korea tried to make the relations between the two countries better as the administration of  South Korean President Moon Jae-in tried to discourage the leaflet and rice campaigns, and defectors complained of pressure to avoid criticism of the North.

Several activists were stopped by residents when they attempted to send plastic bottles filled with rice and released them in the sea.

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