The Defense Ministry on Thursday denied rumors that the Army placed a substantially larger purchase of over 3,000 body bags more than normal to prepare for thousands of deaths during President Yoon Suk Yeol’s Dec. 3 martial law imposition.
“The Army typically has body bags reserved and managed in case of war,” a South Korean Army official, who declined to be named, said during the ministry’s regular briefing.
“The body bags that were delivered in December last year were aligned with the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s (five-year) plan announced in 2022. They were delivered on Dec. 11 as a normal delivery after the related contract was signed in June of the same year,” according to the official.
Broadcaster MBC reported Tuesday that the number of body bags the military had in December last year was more than double what it had in previous months, quoting military data submitted to Rep. Choo Mi-ae of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea. The Army had 1,826 body bags in stock as of November that year, with the number remaining below 2,000 throughout the year until December, when the figure suddenly jumped to 4,940 body bags, according to the data.
South Korea's military normally has fewer than 100 deaths per year, according to the MBC report.
Democratic Party spokesperson Hwang Jung-a on Wednesday pointed to the military’s purchase of the thousands of body bags as a sign that Yoon and Noh Sang-won, ex-commander of the Korea Defense Intelligence Command were “planning a massacre.”
mkjung@heraldcorp.com
