The person who arrived from South Korea on New Year’s Day crossed the heavily guarded border, is likely a North Korean defector who has returned to his homeland. The South Korean Ministry of Defense currently assumes this.
These are assumptions, the authorities are still verifying all available facts. But they indicate that it is the same man who climbed the border fence from North Korea in November 2020. That North Korean was in his twenties at the time and very acrobatic; he previously claimed to have been a gymnast.
Spectacular
If it’s actually about this person, that would be remarkable. The fact that a year and a half ago the North Korean managed to climb over the three-meter high fence and get through the landmine-strewn no man’s land without being stopped has already been called spectacular. Let alone that he succeeded a second time, but then the other way around, back into North Korea.
According to correspondent Garrie van Pinxteren, the four-kilometer-wide no man’s land between the two Koreas is an area “which you should not be able to get through”. The few cases where this has happened are mostly North Korean defectors returning.
Shot right away
These returning North Koreans may have various motives for doing so. For example, they cannot settle in the capitalist society of South Korea and want to return to their families. Or they defected with the intention of spying in South Korea or on a mission there, only to return.
What it was in this particular case remains unclear for the time being. “We will probably never find out,” says Van Pinxteren in the NOS Radio 1 News. “The chances are slim that North Korea will tell.” The communist regime has not yet responded to reports that someone has crossed the border.
Incidentally, the person also got shot right away by North Korean border guards. Because of the pandemic, they have orders to fire as soon as someone tries to cross the border.
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