North Korea is intensifying anti-South sentiment among its youth, reporting that high school seniors are repeatedly volunteering to enlist in frontline border posts.
This move coincides with the annual joint U.S.-ROK exercise Freedom Shield (FS). While North Korea stages military displays and issues official condemnations, it is also waging an internal propaganda campaign.
On Tuesday, the Workers’ Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported that amid nationwide outrage, over 1,200 high school seniors from North Hwanghae Province bravely volunteered for frontline border posts.
On February 27, about 300 Pyongyang high school seniors reportedly volunteered for frontline duty. On March 7, students from South Pyongan, South Hwanghae, and Jagang provinces also volunteered, though exact numbers weren’t disclosed.
The trend of high school seniors volunteering for frontline service seems to have spread nationwide from Pyongyang, with volunteer numbers steadily increasing.
This appears to be a propaganda campaign targeting South Korea, coinciding with the U.S.-ROK joint exercise Freedom Shield that began on Monday.
The newspaper claimed, “While U.S. imperialists and South Korean military thugs are frantically conducting reckless large-scale joint drills to crush our republic, our new generation stands ready to lead the fight to annihilate them without mercy if they encroach upon even 0.001 mm (0.00003937inches).”
It also asserted that the entire nation is enraged with rising hostility toward “mortal enemies” pushing the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war, emphasizing that young people are filled with determination to defend the homeland.
On the first day of U.S.-ROK joint exercises, North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) from an inland region of Hwanghae Province towards the West Sea. North Korea’s Foreign Ministry warned of high-intensity provocations, stating they would “continue to exercise strategic deterrence.”
North Korea again criticized the U.S. and South Korea, claiming that “the commencement of the largest-ever joint military exercises clearly reveals to the world who is truly responsible for escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula.”