SKorea: Unidentified person crosses border into North Korea

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s subject said Sunday that an unidentified idiosyncratic crossed the heavy fortified borderline into North Korea.

South Korea had earlier spotted the idiosyncratic with surveillance instrumentality astatine the eastbound information of the borderline and sent troops to seizure him oregon her connected Saturday night. But the troops failed to find the idiosyncratic and the surveillance instrumentality detected the idiosyncratic crossing implicit the border, Joint Chiefs of Staff officers said.

South Korea sent a connection to North Korea connected Sunday greeting to guarantee the information of the person, but the North hasn’t responded, the officers said requesting anonymity citing section rules.

In September 2020, North Korea fatally changeable a South Korean fisheries authoritative recovered floating successful its waters successful enactment with what Seoul called strict anti-virus rules that impact shooting anyone illegally crossing the border. Earlier successful 2020, North Korean person Kim Jong Un placed a borderline metropolis nether full lockdown aft a North Korean defector with COVID-19-like symptoms sneaked backmost home. The destiny of that defector, who had lived successful South Korea, is not known.

On Saturday, North Korea announced it had decided to spot apical precedence connected strict microorganism restrictions astatine a high-profile ruling enactment gathering past week.

The 2 Koreas are divided on the world’s astir heavy equipped border, called the Demilitarized Zone. An estimated 2 cardinal mines are peppered wrong and adjacent the 248-kilometer (155-mile) -long, 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) -wide DMZ, which is besides guarded by barbed ligament fences, vessel traps and combat troops connected some sides.

Defecting via the DMZ is subsequently rare. At the tallness of their Cold War rivalry, some Koreas sent agents and spies to each other’s territory done the DMZ, but nary specified incidents person been reported successful caller years.

About 34,000 North Koreans person defected to South Korea since the precocious 1990s to debar poorness oregon governmental oppression, but a immense bulk of them person travel via China and Southeast Asian countries. Some South Koreans person tried to defect to the impoverished, authoritarian North, but it is rare.