South Korean guard post (Yonhap) via The Korea Herald
SEOUL — A North Korean man was captured by South Korea’s military after he crossed the inter-Korean border on foot along the east coast, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday.
The unidentified man was taken into custody in the morning after a search operation that lasted for at least 10 hours.
On late Tuesday night military surveillance picked up the man approaching the fortified military demarcation line separating the two Koreas in Goseong County in the east. The military then issued a top-level alert and initiated the search.
“An investigation is underway to establish his identity and intentions,” the JCS said.
“No unusual moves by the North Korean military have been detected.”
The military is expected to send an internal inspection team to the unit in charge of the area over suspected security breach. Local reports said the man appeared to be a civilian defector, and made his way well past a layer of defenses near the armed border before capture.
For the search operations, troops were placed on “Jindogae” alert, which is issued to cope with a possible intrusion of armed guerrillas from North Korea, officials said, adding that the alert would be lifted after analyzing the situation in front-line areas further.
The man appears to have crossed the barbed wire fence along the border, with part of the fencing damaged in the process, military sources said.
It is as yet unknown if advanced surveillance equipment installed along the tense border worked properly.
The man was found within the civilian control line near the border, but still far south of a general outpost located outside the Demilitarized Zone.
The last known defection through the DMZ by a North Korean took place in December 2018, when a soldier from the communist country crossed the military demarcation line in the eastern front region to the South.
The military has vowed to beef up its surveillance posture and tighten discipline among service members in the wake of a series of security breaches recently.
In June 2019, a wooden boat carrying four North Koreans arrived at a South Korean port in the east coast town of Samcheok, Gangwon Province, without being detected.
In July this year, a North Korean defector fled across the western side of the border back to his communist homeland. The South Korean military had remained in the dark until North Korea reported the incident.