South Korea Holds A Search Operation, This Is The Figure Of A Man Who Broke Through The Demilitarized Zone To North Korea

DMZ South Korea - North Korea. (Wikimedia Commons/Johannes Barre)

JAKARTA - A man who broke through the heavily fortified demilitarized zone (DMZ) from South Korea to North Korea last week, is believed to be a North Korean who previously defected to the South in 2020 in the same area, Seoul's Defense Ministry said Monday. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it had launched a search operation after detecting the person on Saturday on the eastern side of the DMZ that separates the two Koreas.

"The authorities consider the person to be a North Korean defector and are in the process of verifying the relevant facts," the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement Monday, citing Reuters January 3.

A ministry official later told reporters they believed the man, who is in his 30s, came to the South in November 2020.

"The footage shows him having an identical appearance and attire to those who defected from the North in 2020," the official said.

Investigators are looking to determine whether the movement detected over the weekend on the northern side of the border was North Korean troops arriving to escort the man.

However, the South Korean government does not currently consider the incident a case of espionage, the official added.

South Korean media reported the man had experience as a gymnast helping him climb fences, but the official said they could not confirm that.

The official said North Korea had acknowledged South Korean messages on the inter-Korean hotline about the incident, but had not provided further details on the man's fate.

The border crossing, which is illegal in South Korea, comes as North Korea has implemented strict anti-coronavirus measures since closing the border in early 2020, although it has yet to confirm any infections.

DMZ South Korea - North Korea. (Wikimedia Commons/Henrik Ishihara/Globaljuggler)

In September 2020, North Korea apologized after its troops shot dead a South Korean fisheries official who went missing at sea and burned his body, in what it said was an anti-pandemic precaution.

Two months earlier, North Korea had declared a national emergency and closed a border town after a North Korean defector with reported COVID-19 symptoms illegally crossed back from the South.

While thousands of North Koreans have settled in the South, crossing the DMZ is rare, with most defectors passing through China. South-to-North defections across the DMZ are still less common, with only a handful recorded in recent years.

However, several recent incidents have raised concerns in South Korea over security lapses, or a delayed response by troops guarding the border.

When a suspected defector crossed from North Korea in 2020, he was not detained until 14 hours after crossing the border, prompting an oath from the South Korean military to increase security.

In Saturday's case, the person's presence near the border was unknown for nearly three hours after CCTV cameras recorded the person climbing the fence and setting the alarm off, the military said at a briefing on Sunday.

South Korean troops launched a search operation after spotting the man at 9:20 p.m., but were unable to stop their crossing to the North at around 10:40 p.m.

To note, in June South Korea announced it would accelerate the acquisition of rail-mounted robots, and video and audio systems supporting artificial intelligence, to enhance security along the border.