South Korean activists sent five anti-North Korean propaganda balloons across the inter-Korean border on Saturday from a western border resort in commemoration of the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War, their representatives said.

About 10 activists, mostly North Korean defectors, released the propaganda balloons in Paju, north of Seoul, Saturday morning. The balloons carried about 100,000 leaflets, 500 one-dollar bills, booklets, radios and DVDs, they said.

The leaflets included stories of the North Korean invasion of the South in 1950 and the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, they added.

"I had learned that the South started the Korean War when I was in North Korea. But I was surprised when I found out the North actually invaded the South," said Park Sang-hak, a North Korea-born defector who led the anti-North Korea campaign. "We sent the balloons to tell North Korean people the truth of the Korean War."

Defectors and other South Korean activists frequently send hundreds of thousands of leaflets despite Pyongyang's threat of retaliation.



(Yonhap News)