North Korean state media reported that over one million people have applied to join or return to the army. The report accused Seoul of a provocative drone incursion that allegedly brought the situation to the brink of war. According to the Korean Central News Agency, the 1.4 million young people, including students and youth league officials, have signed petitions to join the army and are determined to fight in a “sacred war of destroying the enemy with the arms of the revolution.”
Photographs published by KCNA showed young people signing petitions at an undisclosed location on Monday and Tuesday. North Korea claims to have enlisted over 1 million young people to join the Korean People’s Army in just two days. It comes at a time of heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula.
Pyongyang on Tuesday blew up symbolic roads and railways connecting the two Koreas after warning that further drone flights would be considered a declaration of war. Soldiers on the border were ordered to prepare to any eventuality.
Seoul initially denied sending drones, but Pyongyang claims it has “clear evidence” of official involvement in the campaign, which purportedly features anti-regime propaganda leaflets scattered over the North’s capital.
“Millions of young people have turned out in the nationwide struggle to wipe out the ROK scum who committed a serious provocation of violating the sovereignty of the DPRK through a drone infiltration,” KCNA said, referring to both countries by their official acronyms.
North Korea already has lengthy periods of mandatory military service for all men, and has previously made claims of patriotic waves of enlistments at times of high tensions with Seoul or Washington.
Last year, state media reported on 800,000 of its citizens volunteering to join the North’s military to fight against the United States.
In 2017, nearly 3.5 million workers, party members and soldiers volunteered to join or rejoin its army, state media said at that time. It is very difficult to verify the North’s claims.
According to data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, North Korea has 1.28 million active soldiers and about 600,000 reservists. It also reportedly had 5.7 million Worker/Peasant Red Guard reservists with many units unarmed.
The two Koreas are still technically at war after their 1950-53 war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Team BharatShakti
