Civic groups send coal briquets, animal feed to N. Korea

SEOUL, March 24 (Yonhap) -- South Korean civic groups delivered coal briquets and
livestock feed to North Korea on Tuesday as border traffic proceeded normally,
officials and activists said.
Seven non-governmental aid groups traveled to the communist neighbor in the
morning after North Korea reopened border traffic over the weekend, Unification
Ministry spokesperson Lee Jong-joo said.
North Korea sealed the inter-Korean border three times and cut off the only
remaining official phone and fax channel while South Korea and the United States
held a 12-day military exercise that ended on Friday. Pyongyang views the drill
as a rehearsal for invasion, but the allies say it is purely defensive. The
North's retaliatory measures were withdrawn on Saturday.
"Border traffic is proceeding in a normal manner. The number of visitors to North
Korea was restored to the level before the border closure," Lee said.
The Love Briquette Sharing Movement and the Korea Peninsula Agro-fishery Co-work
delivered 50,000 briquets and 25 tons of animal feed respectively via the
overland route across the eastern military demarcation line, their organizers
said. The delivery was suspended over the past two weeks due to the repeated
border closures.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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