South Korea explained to North Korea its offer to provide COVID-19 aid on Monday via an inter-Korean hotline, Seoul’s Ministry of Unification (MOU) said, but Pyongyang remained unresponsive to the proposal.

Monday’s call comes a week after South Korea attempted to deliver a letter to North Korea detailing plans to provide vaccines, masks and COVID-19 test kits to help the DPRK fight an ongoing outbreak of COVID-19, which has led to a nationwide lockdown and 67 confirmed deaths so far.