SEOUL (Reuters) – The person observed crossing the heavily fortified border from South Korea into North Korea last week is presumed to be a North Korean who had previously defected to the South, Yonhap news agency reported on Monday, citing Seoul’s defence ministry.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it carried out a search operation after detecting the person on Saturday on the eastern side of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas.
“The authorities presume the person is a North Korean defector and are in the process of verifying related facts,” the ministry said, according to Yonhap.
The defector is suspected of being a man who used his experience as a gymnast to cross border fences and defect to the South across the DMZ in the same area in 2020, Yonhap said, without identifying him.
The border crossing, which is illegal in South Korea, came as North Korea carries out strict anti-coronavirus measures since shutting borders in early 2020, though it has not confirmed any infections.
While thousands of North Koreans have settled in the South, crossings of the DMZ are rare, with most defectors making their way through China.
Defections from South to North across the DMZ are rarer still, with just a handful recorded in recent years.
(Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
