On Tuesday November 24th, North Korea fired heavy artilleries towards Yeonpyeong Island, 120 km west from Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Due to North Korea's artillery fires, two marines were killed, 15 troops and 3 civilians were injured and dozens of buildings were burned and destroyed. In return, South Korea quickly responded back by firing their artilleries towards North Korea. The casualties and damages caused in North Korea are currently unknown. South Korean Minister of Defense stated that South Korea will be sending additional military enforcements towards five islands near the disputed sea border including the Yeonpyeong Island. South Korean government announced that the skirmish began as North Korea warned South Korea to halt their military drills near their sea border. However, South Korea refused and continued the military drills and fired their artilleries in to disputed waters. However the shootings were clearly away from the North Korean shore and their official sea regions. Despite the fact that the shots did not effect North Korea in anyway, North Korea retaliated by firing artilleries to Yeonpyeong Island as South Korea refused in return. Few minutes later, South Korea responded back with artillery firings towards North Korea.
As the tensions between South Korea and North Korea developed with much intensity due to the artillery fire exchanges, the whole world's views immediately became focused towards Korean peninsula including U.S. , Canada and China, jus
t to name a few. U.S. government stated that they will be increasing the military supports towards their ally, South Korea. U.S. government also stated that North Korea's attack was outrageous and unprovoked. Moreover China, a country with great influence towards North Korea, is expected to encourage North Korea to ease their tension.As a South-Korean, it is heartrending and outraging to see North Korea's attack especially because the attack was towards civilians as well. Attacking an island where thousands of civilians are present, just because opposition army had fired artilleries towards "disputed" water which had no impact on North-Korea in any aspect is horrendous and pugnacious. The Korean War has been dragged on for over 60 years and instead of choosing the safer and rightful way to resolve the trouble, North Korea decided to provoke South Korea and the world with an absurd excuse. Therefore it seems questionable whether the North Korea is concerned with peace and safety for their country and their civilians.
Secondly, it is surprising to see how North Korea has paid back after all the financial and food aids that were supported by South Korea for past decades while North Korea has never made any significant contribution towards South Korea. Moreover, South Korea has promoted peace and negotiations in order to search for resolution to end the dreadful war which lasted for 60 years. Ever since the armistice was signed in 1953, South-Korea had never made any forms of direct provoking actions which involved any harmings towards North Korea. Therefore, it is evident that all of the struggles within the Korean peninsula since 1953 has been due to North Korea's preposterous actions.
The war within the Korean Peninsula can possibly develop in to a larger scale internationally and perhaps it can even trigger the start of the World War III. As the world has experienced the abysmal world wars twice in the past century, I would like to see the whole world step up as one in order to resolve the problem within the Korean peninsula peacefully to stop repeating the same mistake that we have made in the past which resulted in vile and atrocious outcomes. I wholeheartedly hope that the tension within the Korean peninsula will settle down and ultimately, I hope to see the conflict between South and North Korea resolve peacefully.
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