North Korea has laid 960,000 mines along border since 2024, South says

North Korea has laid some 960,000 landmines along its border with South Korea since 2024, according to South Korean military estimates, Yonhap news agency reported on Friday, citing several lawmakers.

More than 2 million landmines are estimated to have been planted along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), including those laid by South Korea's military, according to military experts. About half of the total were added in the past two years, the report said.

The DMZ is a roughly 4-kilometre-wide buffer zone separating the two Koreas, which have remained divided since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea has been heavily reinforcing its border with the South since early 2024. Leader Kim Jong Un ordered the demolition of all historic road and rail links between the two countries, while Pyongyang has also laid landmines and erected barriers and additional barbed-wire fences.

The expanded border fortifications have increased the risk of incidents. On September 21, three South Korean soldiers were injured, some seriously, in an explosion involving a North Korean landmine. North Korea's leadership denied responsibility for the incident.

The border fortifications reflect Kim's abandonment of the goal of reunifying the two Koreas. Since its founding in 1948, North Korea had officially sought reunification with the South. Kim first moved away from that goal in late 2023, declaring South Korea the "principal enemy." North Korea has since removed all references to reunification with the South from its constitution.

The Korean peninsula has been divided into a communist North and a democratic South since the Korean War. The conflict ended with an armistice, but the two countries have never signed a peace treaty.