A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea via the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone on Monday, citing repeated beatings and poor living conditions in his homeland, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said.
The lowest-ranking serviceman purported to be in his late teens crossed the border on foot and tendered his submission at around 8 a.m. at a guard post in Hwacheon, Gangwon Province, an official said.
No military clash occurred during his defection.
“We’ve secured his custody and handed him over to a related agency, which is now looking into his exact motive and method of escape,” a ministry official told reporters on customary condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
“Details are to be examined further, but the soldier mentioned habitual beating and his discontent over North Korea’s reality as the main reasons that had driven his defection.”
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| Inter-Korean Transit Office near the Demilitarized Zone on Paju in Gyeonggi-do Province (Yonhap) |
The man appears to be the first North Korean soldier to flee since another trooper crossed the border and knocked on the door of a barrack in Goseong, Gangwon Province, in October 2012.
The incident had revealed South Korea’s lax border defense, prompting the sacking of Army commanders and senior officers in charge. The ministry has since installed a raft of bells, phone boxes and guidance signs within the DMZ to help ensure a safer route for defectors.
Pyongyang, for its part, has reportedly been tightening border controls to contain the defector outflow since leader Kim Jong-un took power in December 2011.
The North has been holding an increasing number of training exercises for surprise attacks and ambush infiltrations into the DMZ areas, while nearly 1,300 wood or concrete markers have been set up every 200 to 300 meters along the border.
More than 25,000 North Koreans resettled in the South between 2002 and 2014, according to the Unification Ministry. Albeit with slight fluctuations, the annual sums steadily rose from 1,384 in 2005 to 2,706 in 2011 but it plunged to around 1,500 in 2012 and 2013 and then 1,400 in 2014, reflecting reinforced border security.
Inter-Korean tensions have been escalating in recent months as the communist regime tests a submarine-launched ballistic missile and claims to have mastered miniaturizing warheads to mount on delivery vehicles.
On Sunday, it again fired three KN-01 short-range missiles into the East Sea.
By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)
