North Korea warns the South over anti-Pyongyant leaflets

North Korea said on Tuesday that South Korea will face "devastating consequences" over anti-Pyongyang leaflets following the back and forth of ‘trash balloon drops’ between the two countries in May and June this year.

Kim Yo Jong, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister and a senior party official, said large balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets from South Korea were found in her country, causing inconvenience to residents.

🇰🇷NEW -> Video this AM, when South Korean balloons filled with K-pop, K-dramas, American $1 bills, & anti-Kim Jong Un leaflets are sent over the DMZ.

The group, Fighters for a Free North Korea, says it's totally undeterred by the trash balloons sent from North Korea.

Now the… pic.twitter.com/ulWgTKIooZ

— Mike Valerio (@ValerioCNN) June 6, 2024

"The situation seemed to be becoming unacceptable. Again I give you a stern warning," she said in a statement carried by North Korea’s ‘Korean Central News Agency’. 

This comes on the same day that it’s been reported that a senior North Korean diplomat based in Cuba defected with his wife and child to South Korea in November. 

Ri Il Kyu, 52, has become the highest-ranking North Korean diplomat to escape to the South since 2016.

It’s believed before fleeing to the South, he was a counsellor at the North Korean embassy in Cuba, the Chosun Ilbo. 

Details on North Koreans defections often take months to come to light, with defectors needing to be cleared by authorities and going through a course of education about South Korean society and systems.