North Korea has claimed that the country's first cases of COVID-19 emerged from an area near the border with South Korea, apparently blaming the South for the outbreak of the virus. 
 
Quoting the inspection results of the North's state emergency epidemic prevention headquarters, the Korean Central News Agency(KCNA) reported on Friday that several persons coming from the area of Ipho-ri in Kumgang County in Kangwon Province to the capital city in mid-April had a fever.
 
It was also noted that a sharp increase of fever cases were witnessed among their contacts. 
 
The Ipho-ri area borders with South Korea's Inje and Yanggu in Gangwon Province. 
 
The KCNA also said an 18-year-old soldier and a five-year-old kindergartener who were in contact with "alien things" in a hill around the barracks and residential quarters in the Ipho-ri area in early April showed symptoms and later tested positive for the coronavirus.
 
The claim apparently blames balloons flown across the border into the North for the outbreak. South Korean defectors and activists flew the balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets and humanitarian aid across the border despite the North's protest.

[Photo : YONHAP News]