SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Vowing strong retaliation, South Korea said today that North Korean soldiers laid the three mines that exploded last week at the heavily fortified border, maiming two South Korean soldiers.

South Korea’s military, which investigated the mines, said that Pyongyang will face unspecified “searing” consequences for the mine blasts in the Seoul-controlled southern part of the Demilitarized Zone that has bisected the Korean Peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

The U.S.-led U.N. Command, which also conducted an investigation that blamed Pyongyang for the mines, condemned what it called violations of the armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War, which still technically continues because the participants have yet to settle a peace treaty.

The soldiers were on a routine patrol near a wire fence in the southern side of world’s most heavily armed border when the explosions happened. One of the soldiers lost both legs, while the other lost one leg.

More than a million mines are believed to be buried inside the DMZ, and North Korean mines have occasionally washed down a swollen river into the South, killing or injuring civilians. But North Korean soldiers crossing the border and planting mines is highly unusual.

The explosions come amid continuing bad feelings between the rival Koreas over the establishment of a U.N. office in Seoul tasked with investigating the North’s alleged abysmal human rights conditions. Pyongyang also refuses to release several South Koreans detained in the North.

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