On South Korean border island Baekryeong, tanks, guns and ‘dragon’s teeth’ guard front line
- Baekryeong has 5,000 residents, outnumbered by soldiers on high alert, but it’s strategically important; you can see North Korea from most of its fortified beaches
- ‘Sometimes I have dreams about the North Koreans invading’, says a resident about this potential military flashpoint that helps determine control over vital shipping lanes
It is South Korea’s westernmost territory, soldiers outnumber residents, and you can see North Korea from almost every barbed wire-lined beach: welcome to Baekryeong Island, a community on the front line.
Far closer to the North Korean mainland than it is to the South, Baekryeong is a fortress: tanks are parked at the sides of roads, there are guard posts on every hill, and the picturesque beaches are covered in dragon’s teeth – concrete pyramid-shaped fortifications – to deter invasion.
Seoul was awarded control over the approximately 45-square-km (17-square-mile) island at the end of Korean war hostilities in the 1950s, but its 5,000 or so residents – plus an even higher number of soldiers – live under constant low-level threat.
The island has long been a potential military flashpoint: North Korea’s Kim claimed in 2013 that he could “rain down a sea of fire” on Baekryeong, and then staged amphibious mock invasion drills in 2017.
“Sometimes I have dreams about the North Koreans invading, especially with what is happening in the news,” said 64-year-old Baekryeong native Kim Keum-sook, referring to the record-breaking blitz of missile launches by Kim this year.
The island is of immense strategic importance for Seoul, as it helps determine control over vital Yellow Sea shipping lanes, without which its Incheon harbour would be cut off from the world.