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Reuters
Reuters
Health
Soo-hyang Choi

North Korea blames 'alien things' near border with South for COVID outbreak

FILE PHOTO: Former North Korean defectors living in South Korea, release balloons containing one dollar banknotes, radios, CDs and leaflets denouncing the North Korean regime, towards the north near the demilitarized zone which separates the two Koreas in Paju, north of Seoul January 15, 2014. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File Photo

North Korea claimed on Friday that the country's first COVID-19 outbreak began with patients touching "alien things" near the border with South Korea, apparently shifting blame to the neighbour for the wave of infections in the isolated country.

Announcing results of an investigation, the North ordered people to "vigilantly deal with alien things coming by wind and other climate phenomena and balloons in the areas along the demarcation line and borders," the official KCNA news agency said.

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