Seoul confirms North Korea’s defection as Pyongyang seals border

A suspected North Korean defector crossed the de facto western maritime border last month and is now in the south, Seoul’s military said, days after Pyongyang said it would seal the countries’ shared border.

The North’s military said this week it would “permanently close and block the southern border” by completely cutting off “roads and railways” connected to the South and building “strong defense structures.”

Kim Myung-soo, the chairman of Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers Thursday that the North’s latest moves “could be aimed at preventing the external leakage of internal personnel” to the South.

“Our military arrested a person believed to be from North Korea in the West Sea in mid-September and handed him over to the relevant authorities,” the Seoul military said yesterday.

“There have been no unusual movements by the North Korean military and we cannot confirm any further details.”

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said a North Korean escaped on board a wooden boat during the incident.

The latest case follows two recent defections: one across the heavily fortified inter-Korean land border and the other through the neutral zone of the Han River Estuary, both reported by Seoul in August.

South Korea said in July that Pyongyang had planted tens of thousands of new landmines and built barriers in the border area, resulting in “several casualties” among the North’s soldiers when the mines exploded.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled south since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s. —AFP