North Korean man who crossed border wants to defect: South Korea's military
06 November, 2020
A North Korean man who crossed the heavily fortified border with South Korea has said he really wants to defect south, Seoul officials said on Thursday (Nov 5).
The person was taken into custody in the Demilitarised Zone separating the two Koreas on Wednesday, a long time after he was spotted crossing barbed wire fences installed along the border, prompting an urgent search operation.
Authorities have launched an investigation into how the man managed to cross the frontier, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
"I understand the individual has expressed his willingness to defect," JCS spokesman Kim Joon-rak told a briefing, declining to provide further detail through the ongoing investigation.
Kim said border controls were being further examined following the search for the person revealed that some parts of the fences built with electronic monitoring systems were found to have been damaged, possibly by typhoons.
There is no unusual movement from North Korean troops, Kim added.
The defection comes just as Seoul reopens tours to the southern portion of the DMZ, which includes seen several armed clashes but also served as a venue for key inter-Korean events, including one of the most recent summits.
The tours have been suspended in October 2019 after an outbreak of deadly African swine fever broke out in North Korea, and due to concerns about the novel coronavirus this year.
This week's DMZ crossing may be the first since a North Korean soldier defected south in 2019.
Another soldier crossed in 2018, and in a more dramatic 2017 incident, North Korean troops fired at a soldier when he drove an army truck through the DMZ.
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