North Korean crosses the heavily fortified border to South Korea
Seoul, South Korea – an unidentified North Korean man crossed the highly fortified land border separating the two Koreas and is in police custody, the southern army announced on Friday.
The heads of southern joint staff said that the military identified and followed the individual near the central-west section of the military demarcation line and carried out a “guided operation” before taking the person in detention on Thursday evening.
He said the authorities planned to investigate borders and did not immediately say if they considered the incident as an attempted defection.
The mixed chiefs said they had informed the United Nations command led by the United States on the incident and had detected any immediate sign of unusual military activity by the North.
According to joint chiefs, a South Korean military team approached the North Korean man who is unarmed after having detected him and, after having identified himself as South Korean troops, guided her safely from the demilitarized zone attached to the mine which divides the two Koreas.
Border tensions have broken out in recent months when the two Koreas have exchanged a cold style psychological warfare, North Korea, sending thousands of garbage balls to South propaganda and South Korea by exploding anti-Pyongyang propaganda through speakers.
Since its entry into office last month, the new liberal president of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, has made efforts to rebuild confidence with North Korea, interrupting the emissions of first-line speakers and moving to prohibit militants from piloting balloons carrying propaganda leaflets through the border.
In April, the South Korean troops fired warning fire to repel around 10 North Korean soldiers who briefly crossed the military demarcation line. The Southern Army said the soldiers returned to the North Korean territory without incident and that the North did not return.
In June of last year, the North Korean troops crossed the border three times, which prompted South Korea to shoot. Experts suggested that these passages through could have been accidental, while the North Korean troops have added anti-tank barriers, planted mines and carried out other work to strengthen borders in the midst of increasing tensions between Koreas.
The diplomacy between the Koreas divided by the war has derailed since the collapse of the denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang in 2019, which prompted North Korean leader Kim Jong a the previous conservative government of South Korea responded by strengthening its military exercises combined with the United States and Japan, which the North has condemned as repetitions of invasion.
