North Korean soldier defects to South through heavily militarised border

South Korean military spots him along eastern border and assists his entry into South

A North Korean soldier reportedly defected to South Korea on Tuesday by crossing the heavily militarised border on the Korean peninsula’s east coast.

South Korean guards, who had been monitoring his movements, took him into custody in Goseong county, the Yonhap news agency reported.

The South Korean military has also confirmed that they are questioning the individual, believed to be a North Korean staff sergeant, to understand his motives for defecting.

The South Korean military spotted the soldier north of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) within the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) along the eastern border and carried out an operation to assist his entry into South Korea, the agency noted, citing the military.

The DMZ is a strip of land spanning the Korean Peninsula, acting as a buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea. Serving as a de facto border, the DMZ roughly splits the Korean Peninsula in half. The Military Demarcation Line (MDL) runs through the centre of the DMZ, marking the front line as it stood when the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953.

Defections across the border are rare and risky, with most North Korean escapees typically fleeing through China or other third countries.

Tuesday’s defection comes just over a month after it was reported that a North Korean diplomat  stationed in Cuba defected to South Korea along with his family in November last year.

In a brief statement, the National Intelligence Service confirmed to a South Korean newspaper’s report that Ri Il Kyu, 52, North Korean counsellor of political affairs in Cuba, defected last year.

As a counsellor, Mr Ri was tasked with blocking rival South Korea and old ally Cuba from forging diplomatic ties, Chosun Ilbo reported.

Mr Ri’s defection is the latest in a series of defections from North Korea. Human rights groups and successful defectors report that those caught attempting to flee the country face harsh penalties, including the possibility of execution.

Earlier this month, it was reported that a North Korean resident defected to South Korea after crossing the heavily guarded western maritime border.

According to a report by Yonhap, two North Koreans initially attempted to cross the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea, the de facto inter-Korean sea boundary off the west coast, but only one successfully reached a South Korean border island on foot during low tide.

In June this year, South Korea’s military reported that between 20 and 30 North Korean soldiers crossed the border, but retreated after South Korean forces fired warning shots.

More recently, South Korea appointed a former North Korean diplomat as a vice minister, making him the country’s highest-ranking defector. President Yoon Suk Yeol named Tae Yongho as the secretary general of the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council, which advises the president on policies for peaceful Korean unification.

Mr Tae, 62, previously served as North Korea’s deputy envoy to the UK before defecting in 2016. He fled to avoid subjecting his children to “miserable lives” in North Korea. Mr Tae expressed his disillusionment with leader Kim Jong-un’s alleged executions of officials and pursuit of nuclear weapons. In response, Pyongyang condemned him as “human scum” and accused him of embezzlement and other crimes.

Last year, 196 North Korean defectors came to Seoul, down from nearly 2,700 a decade ago, according to data from the South Korean government.

The relations between the two neighbours have also recently deteriorated due to the “balloon wars”. North and South have been sporadically flying balloons filled with propaganda material across their shared border since the Korean war in the early 1950s. They have also used radio broadcasts, loudspeakers and leaflets to influence each other’s citizens, promoting their ideologies and social systems and encouraging soldiers to defect.

The latest exchange began in May this year when North Korea floated 200 balloons filled with trash in a tit-for-tat response to activists in the South, sending balloons carrying propaganda material about their democratic society and memory devices with K-pop music videos.