South Korean activists send balloons with K-pop and money to the North

Activists from South Korea sent balloons to North Korea this Thursday (June 6, 2025) with K-pop and K-drama, the country’s music and drama styles, as well as 5,000 flash drives, 2,000 US$ bills 1 and around 200 thousand leaflets against leader Kim Jong-un.

According to information from CNN International, groups like the Movement for a Free North Korea (FFNK) have been sending such balloons for years with items restricted in North Korea. They usually contain food, medicines, radios, propaganda leaflets and South Korean news.

Then, in May, North Korea responded to the send giant balloons with trash, land, paper and plastic. Pyongyang confirmed the sending of at least 3,500 balloons with 15 tons of trash, according to state media KCNA.

They began landing in the South last week, which caused flights to be disrupted and led authorities to advise residents to stay at home. Around 1,000 balloons were found.

HAS CNNFFNK leader Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector who fled to the South described the materials they sent as “letters of truth and freedom”.

“South Korea is not a North American colony or a desert of humanity as I learned in North Korea,” he told the newspaper on Wednesday (June 5). “We send money, medicine, facts, truth and love, but sending dirt and garbage in return? This is an inhumane and barbaric act.”

He sends leaflets with information about the Kim family, including the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Nam’s half-brother, and about South Korea’s economic and political development.

The incident made relations between the countries more tense. South Korea announced that it will resume “all military activities” near the demarcation line this week, suspending a 2018 cooperation agreement signed by the countries.