‘I held my husband and cried’: Wartime alerts fuel panic and confusion in Seoul

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‘I held my husband and cried’: Wartime alerts fuel panic and confusion in Seoul

Air raid sirens and evacuation orders left many fearing North Korean attack, though others greeted alerts with shrug

Ifang Bremer | Jeongmin Kim | Yeji Chung May 31, 2023

‘I held my husband and cried’: Wartime alerts fuel panic and confusion in Seoul

An illustration of a megaphone blasting sound over a city at sunrise

Air raid sirens and wartime evacuation alerts jolted Seoul residents from their slumbers early Wednesday morning, leading even those desensitized to North Korean threats to worry about an imminent attack.

29-year-old Park Somi said the warnings to seek shelter left her terrified.

About the Authors

Ifang Bremer

Ifang Bremer is a Seoul Correspondent at NK News. He has worked on investigations for The Guardian and The Observer and previously wrote features on Korea for Dutch newspaper NRC.

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Jeongmin Kim

Jeongmin Kim is the Lead Correspondent at NK News and Editorial Director at KOREA PRO, based in Seoul. Kim covers inter-Korean relations and North and South Korean foreign and military affairs. Kim has covered the 2022 ROK presidential election on the ground, and prior to joining NK News, she worked for the CSIS Korea Chair in Washington D.C. and Reuters news agency’s Seoul bureau.

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Yeji Chung

Yeji Chung is a news trainee at NK News and studies political science at George Washington University.

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