SEOUL - North Korea fired some 200 artillery shells near a South Korean border island off the west coast of the peninsula, turning up pressure on Seoul after leader Kim Jong Un said it was impossible to unify with his neighbour.
The shells were fired Friday to the north of Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a message sent to reporters. People on Yeonpyeong were told to evacuate to shelters, a county official said by telephone.
"There is no damage to our people or military as a result, and the point where they hit the water is the northern area of the NLL," the JCS said, referring to the Northern Limit Line. The boundary was drawn unilaterally by United States-led forces after the Korean War, and waters around the area have been the site of clashes, including a 2010 incident in which South Korea claimed North Korea torpedoed one of its warships south of the line, killing 46 sailors.
In November 2010, the island of about 2,000 inhabitants — including hundreds of military personnel — suffered the first attack on South Korean soil since the end of the Korean War. At the time, North Korea shelled targets for more than an hour, killing two civilians and two marines. The flurry damaged almost 300 structures and set wooded areas ablaze.
In a policy-setting meeting of top party officials that ended last week, Kim said North Korea should "no longer make the mistake" of considering South Korea as a counterpart for reunification because Seoul has declared Pyongyang a "main enemy," the state's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.