South Korean authorities reported that a resident has crossed the heavily fortified and militarized border and crossed into North Korea in what the country's military says is an apparent defection.
Officials said that the individual in question was able to avoid detection for several hours amid a search operation conducted by South Korean military troops. Seoul military chiefs said that they were not aware whether or not the person was still alive, but they revealed that they had already sent a message to the North asking for them to be protected.
North Korean Defector
However, North Korea has long implemented a shoot-on-sight policy during the coronavirus pandemic in its attempt to curb the spread of the virus in the region. Authorities detected the unidentified person in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates the North and South. He was observed at roughly 21:20 local time on Saturday, said South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
Defense officials from Seoul have committed to overhauling the border defense system between the two Koreas after similar breaches in the past. North Korean troops shot and burned a South Korean fisheries official in September 2020, sparking uproar and causing Pyongyang to blame the anti-virus rule and apologize for the incident, BBC reported.
In a statement released on Monday, the South Korean Defense Ministry said that based on CCTV footage the individual is believed to have defected from the North in November 2020. The ministry added that relevant authorities were still verifying the facts of the incident and were looking into the identity of the individual.
Officials from the JCS said that they deployed troops who were unable to locate the individual that crossed the DMZ. In a statement, a military official said that security cameras showed the person climbing a barbed wire fence on Saturday. According to authorities, a guard on CCTV duty had missed the moment the individual was caught on video.
North Korean Military's Response
While South Korean officials have already notified and sent a letter to North Korean authorities, the latter has not yet responded to the messages. South Korea's Defense Ministry spokesman Boo Seung-chan said on Monday that there have been no "unusual movement of the North Korean military" in relation to the Sunday border crossing, CNN reported.
The possibility of the individual being a defector from the North that came to South Korea in November 2020 involved a man who was captured at the southern part of the border. The individual identified himself as a former gymnast and said to investigators that he crawled over barbed wire fences to defect before South Korean troops discovered him.
Since the late 1990s, roughly 34,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea for economic and political reasons. However, only about 30 of them have returned home to the North in the last decade, based on South Korean government records.
Many observers said that those who chose to return most likely traveled back after failing to adjust to new highly competitive, capitalistic lives in South Korea, had big debts, or were blackmailed by North Korean agents who threatened to harm them or their loved ones if they did not return, the Associated Press reported.
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