South Korea fires warning shots at North Korean patrol near border

Story highlights

South Korea: About 10 North Korean soldiers approached the Military Demarcation Line

The South fired about 20 warning shots, a Defense Ministry official says

The North Korean patrol didn't return fire and eventually retreated, the official says

Seoul, South Korea CNN  — 

South Korean soldiers fired warning shots at a patrol from North Korea to turn it back from the two sides’ border, a South Korean Defense Ministry official said Monday.

About 10 North Korean soldiers approached the Military Demarcation Line around 9:40 a.m. Monday, said the official, who declined to be identified.

“After a warning broadcast, the South Korean side fired about 20 rounds of warning shots,” the official said.

The North Koreans didn’t fire any shots back and retreated from the heavily fortified area – near Paju City, northwest of Seoul – around three hours after the initial confrontation, the official said.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency hadn’t published any mention of the incident as of Monday afternoon.

Tensions periodically flare along the line that divides the two Koreas, which technically remain at war from their conflict in the 1950s. They signed a ceasefire but not a formal peace treaty in 1953.

A similar incident, in which the South Korean military fired at North Korean soldiers approaching the border, took place last month, according to the South’s Defense Ministry.

The two countries regularly accuse each others’ vessels of violating their disputed sea borders, and warning shots are sometimes fired.

Less common are exchanges of fire between the two heavily armed neighbors. The two sides fired hundreds of shells across their western sea border in March.

In November 2010, North Korea shelled South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, killing four people in what Pyongyang said was a response to a South Korean military drill in the area.

CNN’s K.J. Kwon reported from Seoul, and Jethro Mullen wrote from Hong Kong. CNN’s Brian Walker contributed to this report.