Yeonpyeong: Tiny South Korean island watching the horizon

Two-and-a-half hours by ferry from Incheon, South Korea, is the small island of Yeonpyeong.

It looks from the ferry like any South Korean island, until you notice the heavy military presence. It seems like everyone here is wearing camouflage - even the fishermen.

That's because the island is only 40km (25 miles) away from Haeju, North Korea. On a clear day, you can see shoreline with the naked eye. And only 4km away is a tiny North Korean island stocked with rocket artillery launchers.

As tensions rise yet again on the Korean peninsula, people on Yeonpyeong have good reason to be nervously watching the horizon.

"When I came to my senses after we evacuated I looked over what I had actually brought with me," said Ms Kang, a Yeonpyeong resident.

"I realised I'd only brought the winter jacket I was wearing and two pairs of socks for my babies."

Ms Kang - she didn't want to give her full name - was among hundreds of people hurriedly evacuated from Yeonpyeong in 2010 after North Korea carried out what remains its only deadly attack on South Korean soil since the war.

Tensions had been building for some time as North Korea grew in confidence and strength.

The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice which set up clear borders on land - the Military Demarcation Line and the Demilitarized Zone. But neither side could agree on what to do with the sea.

Later that year, amid concerns South Korean leader Syngman Rhee, who opposed the deal, might attempt an attack on the North by sea, the US imposed the North Limit Line (NLL), to keep the two sides apart.

Five islands, including Yeonpyeong, lay on the southern side.

North Korea was not happy about the NLL - not least as it cut off access to important fishing grounds - but with its weaker naval force it had no choice but to tolerate it. Then after two decades it began to start pushing back, eventually declaring its own more generous sea boundaries.

North Korean Navy ships began to cross the NLL on purpose, and from time to time attacked South Korean vessels. Then in 1999 and again in 2002 deadly clashes broke out between the two naval forces west of Yeonpyeong Island. Another deadly clash followed in 2009 near Daechong Island.

In March 2010, the South Korean warship the Cheonan sank near Yeonpyeong, killing all 46 on board and shocking South Korea. An official international investigation concluded that the warship had been sunk by a North Korean torpedo attack, something the North has always denied.

Then on the morning of 23 November 2010, South Korea carried out routine drills on Yeonpyeong, despite objections from the North.

North Korea was furious, claiming live shells had fallen into waters it claimed. Hours later, it fired dozens of artillery shells towards the island. Two soldiers and two civilians were killed.

It remains the only time North Korea has deliberately attacked and killed South Koreans on South Korean soil since the war.

With fires breaking out, buildings damaged and power shortages, the government ordered the roughly 1,000 residents to evacuate for the mainland. They would stay away from their island home for three months, living with relatives or in motels. Some even stayed in a public bathhouse.

Once the immediate danger ed, the question arose of whether it was safe to go back to Yeonpyeong.

Many didn't want to.

Aside from safety, the island's economy had never recovered from the collapse of the yellow croaker fishing industry in the 1960s, the result of overfishing and climate change. Many people had left for the mainland even before the shelling.

The evacuees asked for the government's to help them relocate permanently, but the government disagreed.

The vice-minister of the interior and safety, Ahn Yang-ho, said in a committee meeting that it was a matter of national security.

"If all the residents leave and only soldiers remain in the island, this could lead to the zone becoming an international conflict area in many ways. Considering our national security policy to defend the NLL at any cost, we think we shouldn't the residents to leave the island," he said.

People like Ms Kang couldn't afford to move themselves, unless they could sell their homes.

"But who's going to buy a house in Yeonpyeong after that":[]}