We had to stand in queues for hours to buy bread, knowing that any minute a shell could land among us.

I am like a shell-shocked soldier who over­responds to the least sound of something resembling gunfire.

South Korea's military said it conducted routine artillery firing at some of the islands near the disputed inter-Korean maritime border Tuesday, but said none of its shells crossed the line.

His wife was killed in shelling in the war's last days as they cowered in a bunker in the final conflict zone in the north-east.

From a huge warehouse, they loaded their trucks with hundreds of crates of rockets, artillery shells and large-caliber ammunition.