In July last year, a North Korean defector from South Korea swam at night by sea back to his homeland. Conversely, a few months later, a North Korean managed to climb over the barbed wire at the border and thus reach the southern neighbor.
“Added to the New Year’s Day incident, these matters are embarrassing for the South Korean military,” said Van der Veen. A South Korean general was fired last year as a result of the defector who swam back. Such a scenario may now also be obvious.
Direct shooting
If the person who crossed the border on New Year’s Day is still alive, nothing good awaits him in North Korea, according to Van der Veen. “In the worst case scenario, he will be shot immediately. Due to the pandemic, all border guards are subject to a shoot on sight-bevel.”
In September, for example, a South Korean official was shot dead by North Korean soldiers because he was sailing a small boat in the border area.
The communist regime hopes to keep the corona virus at bay with these kinds of drastic measures. On paper, they succeeded: according to official statistics, no infection has yet been identified in North Korea. “Nobody abroad believes those reports, but it is unclear how big the impact of Covid-19 really is.”
Critical food shortage
Since the pandemic, Kim Jong-un’s country has shut itself off even more from the outside world. All borders have been closed for almost two years now. Even trade with its main ally China has largely ground to a halt.
“Kim has said several times that there is an acute food shortage,” says Van der Veen. If the great leader openly admits this, experts fear that the actual situation is much worse. Vulnerable children and the elderly are at risk of starvation, a UN rapporteur recently warned.
So even if the supposed defector isn’t shot right away, the prospects for him or her are bleak. When it comes to a North Korean, he could be punished for having defected before. If it is a senior South Korean official, he could be used for propaganda purposes.
“Something like this usually ends tragically,” Breuker summarizes.
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