“960,000 mines laid in just two years” ... North Korea has laid large numbers of mines in the DMZ since 2024

[Financial News] North Korea is reported to have laid nearly 1 million mines in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) over the past two years or so.
Multiple offices of lawmakers on the National Assembly Intelligence Committee, the National Defense Committee and other committees said on the 23rd that the military reported to the National Assembly that it estimates North Korea has laid a total of 960,000 mines in and around the DMZ since 2024. If the military’s report is accurate, roughly half of all mines in the DMZ were laid relatively recently, since 2024.
Experts in relevant fields estimate that around 2 million mines in total, including those laid by South Korean forces, are currently buried in the DMZ. Minister of Unification Chung Dong-young also raised the issue of mines in the DMZ during a parliamentary audit on the 7th, citing the total number of mines as “2 million.”
North Korea’s large-scale mine-laying appears to be part of its ongoing effort to “fortify the border” around the Military Demarcation Line (MDL). North Korea has been pursuing this work in earnest since April 2024, after defining inter-Korean relations as relations between “two hostile states.”
Along with laying mines on a large scale, it is simultaneously clearing land to create barren areas, building barriers, constructing tactical roads and installing barbed-wire fences, and severing connections on the Gyeongui and Donghae lines.
As North Korea carries out work across the area along the armistice line, serious harm has also occurred. On the 21st of last month, for instance, a North Korean mine exploded south of the MDL, seriously injuring a member of the South Korean military.
Military tensions in the area are also rising as North Korean troops repeatedly cross the MDL while carrying out this work.
South Korean forces continue to take measures such as broadcasting warnings and firing warning shots at North Korean troops who cross the MDL. The North, however, objects that these measures threaten the safety of its troops and is countering by announcing plans to resume broadcasts over loudspeakers aimed at South Korea, among other steps.
[email protected] Kim Hee-sun Reporter