An unidentified man entered North Korea from the South on New Year’s Day, the military in Seoul said on Sunday, a rare breach of the heavily fortified border between the neighbours. Years of repression and poverty in North Korea have prompted more than 30,000 people to migrate south in the decades following the Korean War, but crossings in the other direction are extremely rare.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Sunday that the person was traced by surveillance equipment in the demilitarized zone that divides the Korean peninsula – at 9:20 p.m. local time on Saturday.
This led to a search operation by the army, but to no avail.
“It is confirmed that the person has crossed the Military Demarcation Line to the north,” it said.
The person has not yet been identified, a JCS official told reporters, adding that South Korean officials sent a message to the North on Sunday regarding the incident.
He said no unusual activity was detected by the North Korean military.
In 2020, North Korean soldiers shot and burned the body of a South Korean fisheries officer Pyongyang said had illegally crossed the maritime border.
In the same year, a North Korean who had fled south three years earlier went back across the heavily fortified border.
Their crossing prompted North Korean officials to close the border town of Kaesong for fear that they might have the coronavirus.
The vast majority of North Koreans who flee first go to China before making their way south, usually via another country.
Only a few have dared to cross the DMZ, which is full of landmines and heavy military presence on both sides.
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