SEOUL: South Korean military said yesterday that it had found an unidentified “drone” suspected to have flown from North Korea, following the discovery of two similar objects near the border in recent weeks.
The South earlier found two unsophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles — about one metre long, two metres wide and painted pale blue — that had crashed near the border with the North.
The two camera-equipped vehicles took hundreds of pictures — albeit of low quality — of border areas and the capital Seoul, including the presidential palace, according to the South’s defence ministry. The military found yesterday another drone of similar design and size in the eastern county of Jeongseon, about 130km south of the heavily fortified border, Seoul’s defence ministry spokesman said.
“We ... will conduct investigations on the object on the suspicion that the North may be behind it,” Kim told reporters.
Seoul’s military saw the drones as “substantial threats” and would come up with ways to detect them, Kim said without elaborating further. The first drone was discovered in the border city of Paju on March 24 and the other one was found in the border island of Baengnyeong on March 31, when the two Koreas traded fire across the tense sea border.
The North dropped 100 shells across the maritime border during a live-fire drill, prompting Seoul to fire back about 300 volleys into North Korean waters.
The military said on Wednesday it had evidence suggesting the vehicle found in Paju was of North Korean origin, citing unique North Korean words typed on its batteries.
North Korea displayed a set of very basic-looking drones during a huge military parade held in Pyongyang last July to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War. And in March last year, state media reported leader Kim Jong-Un overseeing a military drill using “super-precision drone planes.”
AFP
