2 soldiers critically injured in suspected mine blast in DMZ

Three officers from the Army's 25th Infantry Division were injured in a suspected landmine explosion while conducting operations in the Demilitarized Zone on the western front, the military said Monday. Two of the three sustained critical injuries.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday morning that three South Korean military officers carrying out an operation south of the Military Demarcation Line in the western front DMZ were wounded by an unknown explosion. Two were airlifted by emergency helicopter, while the third was to be transported by ground before being evacuated by helicopter, the JCS said.

The injured were transferred to the Armed Forces Capital Hospital, where two were assessed as critically wounded and one as lightly injured. The 25th Division's security operations zone covers Paju, Yangju and Yeoncheon-gun in Gyeonggi Province.

It has not been confirmed whether the explosive was a landmine planted by North Korean forces in the DMZ or one laid by South Korean forces.

North Korea began work to turn the MDL into a formal "border" in 2024, after the Kim Jong-un regime declared inter-Korean relations to be those of "two hostile states" in late 2023. Since then, Pyongyang has been laying mines, erecting fences, clearing vegetation and building barriers inside the DMZ.

That work is currently concentrated on the eastern front, while mine-laying and related activities along the western front — the area covered by the 25th Division — are believed to be in effect complete.

Some observers have raised the possibility that if the explosive was a North Korean mine planted on the western front, it may have been swept into South Korean-controlled territory by floodwaters during the summer rainy season.

In late July, military authorities warned that heavy rains in North Korean territory appeared to have dislodged a number of mines that North Korean forces had planted in the DMZ. There were also indications that some of the displaced mines had detonated within the DMZ north of the MDL.

People Power Party lawmaker Yoo Yong-won of the National Assembly's Defense Committee said during a parliamentary interpellation session on Sept. 10 that North Korean minefields and related fortifications had crossed the MDL by 10 to 15 meters at six locations within a single division's security zone on the western front.

At the time, the JCS said it had identified some changes in terrain and was consulting with the UN Command on the possibility of mine placement.