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SKOREA-NKOREA-DEFECTOR-MILITARY
N. Korean soldier defects across border: South’s military
SEOUL, Dec 1, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A North Korean soldier defected to South
Korea across the eastern land border on Saturday, the South’s military said.
Defections across the closely guarded inter-Korean frontier are rare, and
this one comes as the neighbours pursue a delicate reconciliation process.
“A North Korean soldier was detected crossing the military demarcation
line” by South Korean troops using surveillance equipment, the military Joint
Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.
“The soldier is safely in our custody,” it said. “Related agencies plan to
investigate him regarding the details of how he came to the South.”
Even as talks on denuclearisation between Washington and Pyongyang have
stalled, the two Koreas are pushing ahead with a reconciliation process,
taking steps to ease tensions along their heavily fortified border.
They have begun work to reconnect their railway systems, removed landmines
and destroyed military bunkers at parts of the frontier.
More than 30,000 North Korean civilians have fled their homeland but most
flee across the porous frontier with China, and rarely across the inter-
Korean border which is fortified with minefields and barbed wire.
The last defection involving North Koreans occurred in May when two
civilians aboard a small boat defected to the South across the Yellow Sea.
In November last year, a North Korean soldier drove to the heavily guarded
border at speed and ran across under a hail of bullets from his own side.
He was hit multiple times in the dramatic defection at the Panmunjom truce
village.
In 2012 a North Korean soldier walked unchecked through rows of
electrified fencing and surveillance cameras, prompting Seoul to sack three
field commanders for the security lapse.
BSS/AFP/SSS/0837 hrs