North Korea has announced it is mobilising troops to take up "firing positions" along its heavily fortified border with South Korea, according to Pyongyang's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The announcement came as rumours about the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un continued to circulate online.
Kim Yo Jong visits frontline fortification sites
Kim Yo Jong, the influential sibling of the North Korean leader, visited frontline areas on Wednesday where soldiers are bolstering the border, KCNA reported. In a statement carried by state media, she said: "Our military leadership underlined the need to make those rogues aware that our new firepower units have taken their firing positions."
She cautioned that troops would "mercilessly eliminate" South Korean forces if warning fire resulted in harm to North Korean territory or personnel. She also said Kim Jong-un had "issued an order to fortify the border with an enemy state to be eternally impregnable."
Loudspeakers to return along the border
On Thursday, Kim Yo Jong declared that North Korea would place anti-South Korea loudspeakers ready to restart along the entire border with South Korea within days. The announcement came just 24 hours after she had said the loudspeakers would be in operation along the border at some point this month.
Both countries have long deployed giant loudspeakers along the border as tools of psychological warfare. South Korea has blasted K-pop music, news bulletins and messages condemning Pyongyang, while North Korea has retaliated with anti-South Korean propaganda and sounds including howling wolves, metallic screeches and eerie wails. The broadcasts have been switched on and off during periods of heightened tension and diplomatic engagement.
Rumours over Kim Jong-un's health
Kim Yo Jong's appearance at fortification sites alongside senior military officials on Wednesday came amid swirling rumours that her brother had passed away. On Tuesday, state media appeared to quash these claims by releasing photographs of the 42-year-old attending a public event with his daughter by his side.
The photographs emerged just hours after unverified claims swept across the internet alleging that the leader had fallen into a coma and died after being rushed to Beijing for emergency medical treatment. Wanjun Xie, a US-based Chinese dissident with ties to the China Democracy Party, took to X on Sunday to assert that the North Korean leader had passed away.
Xie claimed that a team of medical experts from Beijing's Peking Union Medical College Hospital had been sent to North Korea on Saturday to treat Kim Jong-un following a severe haemorrhage. He has previously circulated unverified claims, including allegations that Chinese President Xi Jinping had died and been substituted with a body double.
Border tensions after DMZ explosion
Relations between North and South Korea have deteriorated considerably in recent years since Pyongyang began reinforcing the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) with barbed-wire fencing, landmines, anti-tank barriers and military roads. The latest flare-up comes after an explosion on 21 September left three South Korean soldiers wounded while they were carrying out a search operation inside the DMZ, the buffer zone dividing the two nations.
A joint inquiry conducted by South Korea's military and the United Nations Command subsequently determined that the blast had been triggered by North Korean landmines deliberately laid south of the Military Demarcation Line. Pyongyang rejected any responsibility, with Kim Yo Jong accusing Seoul of fabricating the findings for "political and military provocation."
