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Rare South Korea to North Korea defection identified

North Korea has a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy on its side of the border

north-korea-south-korea-border-dmz-ap South Korean army soldiers patrol along the barbed-wire fence in Paju, near the border with North Korea, South Korea, Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022 | AP

The South Korean military has identified a rare instance where a person crossed over the demilitarised zone from the South to the North, entering the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The person, who has not yet been identified, was spotted moving into the North across the Military Demarcation Line at around 10:40pm. on Saturday, some 80 minutes after being detected by surveillance equipment installed on the heavily fortified border, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

An investigation is underway.

After the person was detected in the DMZ at 9:20pm, troops were sent to capture them. "Due to various geographical conditions, including the mountain terrain, we failed (to capture the person)," a JCS official told reporters on condition of anonymity, the country’s Yonhap news agency reported.

North Korea has a “shoot-to-kill” policy in place on the border. Two months back, North Korea had declared a national emergency over the COVID-19 pandemic, sealing a border town after a person with COVID-19 symptoms crossed over into South Korea and then returned.

The DMZ is 4km wide and 248km long and has an estimated two million mines. Defections through it are rare, as most of the around 34,000 North Koreans who have left the country since the late 1990s have come via China or other southeast Asians countries.

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