(Seoul) A North Korean man has fled to South Korea across the maritime border in the Yellow Sea, Seoul said Thursday.
This is the first time in fifteen months that a defector has taken this route. In May 2023, a family of nine fled by boat.
“The South Korean military has secured a suspected North Korean individual and handed him over to relevant authorities,” the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, adding that no unusual movements by the North Korean military had been detected.
“Authorities are investigating the exact process” that led to the defection of this person, who arrived early Thursday on the island of Gyodong, located off the west coast of the peninsula, less than five kilometers from North Korea, the general staff said.
Relations at their lowest
Most defectors first pass through neighbouring China, then through a third country such as Thailand, before reaching South Korea.
“Two defectors were initially spotted, raising the possibility that one of them failed to cross,” South Korean news agency Yonhap reported, citing unnamed military sources.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s.
The defection comes at a time when relations between the two countries are at a low point. Pyongyang has been strengthening its military ties with Russia and has been sending thousands of balloons loaded with garbage to the South for months.
The rate of escapes had declined significantly since 2020 as North Korea locked down its borders to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and issued shoot-on-sight orders along the border with China.
More defectors
But the number of defectors, mostly diplomats and students, nearly tripled last year to 196, compared with 67 in 2022, Seoul said in January.
“North Korea recently suffered severe flooding that caused a lot of damage” and “it is possible” that some “took advantage of this confusion to defect,” Cheong Seong-chang, director of strategy for the Korean peninsula at the Sejong Institute, told AFP.
Heavy rains hit northern regions in late July, and South Korean media reported the death toll could reach 1,500.
South Korea has responded to North Korea’s intensified weapons tests by resuming live-fire exercises and propaganda near the border and suspending a military deal aimed at reducing tensions.
Ahn Chan-il, a defector turned researcher who heads the World Institute for North Korea Studies, said the latest defection could be a sign that those measures are working.
“Anti-Pyongyang leaflets distributed by South Korean activists and loudspeaker broadcasts can stir emotions among North Koreans and prompt them to defect,” he told AFP.