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A North Korean who crossed the heavy fortified onshore borderline into the South has been detained and taken into custody, Seoul's subject said Friday.
The North Korean, identified arsenic a antheral civilian, managed to transverse the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) successful the midwestern portion of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) connected Thursday, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The MDL is the de facto border, which runs done the mediate of the DMZ — the borderline country separating the 2 Koreas, which is 1 of the astir heavy mined places connected earth.
A South Korean worker is seen successful a watchtower astatine the borderline with North Korea, divided by the Imjin River successful Paju, northbound of Seoul, connected June 5, 2025.
PEDRO PARDO/AFP via Getty Images
"The subject identified the idiosyncratic adjacent the MDL, conducted tracking and surveillance," the Joint Chiefs of Staff, oregon JCS, said successful a statement.
It past "successfully carried retired a modular guiding cognition to unafraid custody," it added.
The cognition took astir 20 hours, according to Seoul, aft the antheral was detected by a subject surveillance instrumentality sometime betwixt 3:00 and 4:00am section clip Thursday.
The ngo to safely usher him to the South progressive a sizeable fig of South Korean troops, the JCS said, and took spot successful an country hard to navigate owed to dense vegetation and landmine risks.
The antheral stayed mostly inactive during the day, and South Korea's subject approached him astatine night.
He willingly followed the troops aft they offered to usher him safely retired of the DMZ, according to the JCS.
It said "relevant authorities" volition analyse the elaborate circumstances of the incident.
North Koreans are typically handed implicit to Seoul's quality bureau for screening erstwhile they get successful the South.
History of defections
The incidental comes aft a North Korean worker defected to the South by crossing the MDL successful August past year.
Also past year, different North Korean defected to the South crossed the de facto borderline successful the Yellow Sea, arriving connected Gyodong land disconnected the peninsula's westbound seashore adjacent the borderline betwixt the Koreas.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans person fled to South Korea since the peninsula was divided by warfare successful the 1950s, with astir going overland to neighboring China first, past entering a 3rd state specified arsenic Thailand earlier yet making it to the South.
Defections crossed the onshore borderline that divides the peninsula are comparatively rare.
The fig of palmy escapes dropped importantly from 2020 aft the North sealed its borders - purportedly with shoot-on-sight orders on the onshore frontier with China - to forestall the dispersed of Covid-19.
No antithetic activities by the North Korean subject person been detected, the JCS said Friday.
South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung, who took bureau past month, has vowed a much dovish attack towards Pyongyang compared with his hawkish predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol.
"Politics and diplomacy indispensable beryllium handled without emotion and approached with crushed and logic," Lee said Thursday.
"Completely cutting disconnected dialog is truly a foolish happening to do."
This week the Justice Department revealed that North Korea, which precocious opened a caller coastal tourer tract with room for 20,000 guests, has been utilizing distant accusation exertion workers employed unwittingly by U.S. companies to fund its weapons programs.
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