A North Korean man was discovered by South Korean troops in neutral waters in the Han River estuary on the west coast, last week, the South’s military said Thursday.
Swimming across the maritime border to arrive in the South, the man expressed his intention to defect to the South, according to a Joint Chiefs of Staff official, requesting anonymity.
“Our military was able to secure a North Korean citizen and (his) identity in the neutral waters of the Han River at the early hours of July 31, before handing him over to related agencies,” the JCS said later in a statement.
The Navy first spotted the man with makeshift floating materials attached to his body in neutral waters off the Incheon island of Gyodongdo on the night of July 30, according to the JCS official and sources close to the matter.
The soldiers remained alert and monitored the man for the next 10 hours before deciding to rescue him from waters 11 meters deep at around 4 a.m. the next day.
The North Korean man reportedly waved while asking troops to rescue him. A warrant officer introduced himself as representing the South Korean Navy and asked the North Korean if he was defecting to the South.
Details of the rescue operation were shared with the United Nations Command.
Any unusual signs involving North Korean troops were not detected at the time of the operation, the JCS said.
A Unification Ministry official, declining to be named, said that related government agencies are carrying out a joint investigation. It is difficult to share the exact details at the moment due to the ongoing investigations, it explained.
This marks the second time that a North Korean has crossed the border to defect to the South since President Lee Jae Myung took office in early June.
On July 3, a North Korean man crossed a midwestern portion of the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas and later confirmed his wish to defect to the South.
North Korean defectors are legally entitled to government support to resettle in South Korea, with the Constitution recognizing the entire Korean Peninsula as its territory and all Koreans as its nationals.
The two Koreas technically remain at war, as the 1950-53 Korean War ended with a truce, not a formal peace treaty.
mkjung@heraldcorp.com
