South Korea arrests North Korean soldier for crossing fortified border

The incidental is the archetypal alleged defection of a North Korean worker successful much than a year.

South Korea says it has taken a North Korean worker into custody aft helium crossed the country’s heavy guarded border.

The worker crossed the subject demarcation enactment (MDL) that divides the peninsula connected Sunday, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, which said it “tracked and monitored” the worker earlier securing him.

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South Korea’s subject said it would analyse the circumstances of the soldier’s crossing – a comparatively uncommon incidental successful the mine-strewn borderline portion betwixt the 2 nations still technically astatine war.

South Korean media described the crossing adjacent the cardinal portion of the borderline arsenic a “defection”, with the Chosun Ilbo regular saying the worker expressed his privation to defect aft being approached by a South Korean soldier.

If confirmed, the worker would articulation tens of thousands of North Koreans who person fled poorness and repression successful North Korea since the peninsula was divided by warfare successful the 1950s. Last year, 236 North Koreans arrived successful the South, with women accounting for 88 percent of the total.

The past clip a worker from North Korea, which derides defectors arsenic “human scum”, escaped to the South was in August past year.

Most defectors, however, instrumentality a antithetic way – escaping crossed North Korea’s borderline with China earlier yet making their mode to the South. Direct crossings betwixt the 2 Koreas are comparatively uncommon and highly risky, arsenic the borderline country is afloat of mines and well-monitored connected some sides.

Hong Min, a elder expert astatine the Korea Institute for National Unification, said the latest worker who crossed the borderline whitethorn person been capable to navigate the unsafe terrain owed to his “likely familiarity with the area”.

“The latest crossing volition not beryllium received positively by Pyongyang, arsenic helium could supply the South with accusation connected its unit movements and operations successful the borderline area,” the expert told the AFP quality agency.

In July, a North Korean civilian crossed the borderline by ft in a 20-hour operation aided by the South’s military.

The latest crossing came 4 months aft wide person Lee Jae-myung took office arsenic South Korean president, pursuing months of governmental chaos, which began with the blimpish President Yoon Suk-yeol’s short-lived effort to enforce martial instrumentality successful December.

Lee has taken a antithetic stance from his predecessor connected North Korean person Kim Jong Un, promising to “open a connection transmission with North Korea and found bid connected the Korean Peninsula done talks and cooperation”.

Diplomatic efforts person stalled connected the Korean Peninsula since the illness of denuclearisation talks betwixt Washington and Pyongyang successful 2019 during the archetypal United States President Donald Trump administration, aft a bid of Trump-Kim summits, globally watched spectacles that bore small factual progress.