North Korea on Friday repatriated a South Korean man accused of illegal entry, Seoul's unification ministry said.

   The 52-year-old, identified only by his surname Ma, was sent back to the South through the truce village of Panmunjom, it said.

   "The government will proceed with medical check-ups for him and work to confirm the reason for, and method of, his entry into the North," Park Soo-jin, the ministry's deputy spokeswoman, said at a press briefing.

   North Korea said Ma entered the North illegally in late November.

   Pyongyang's repatriation of him is apparently a routine humanitarian move. In a similar case, the North returned a South Korean man in September.

   Earlier this week, the South sent a North Korean fisherman back home after he was found on a drifting vessel in the East Sea. (Yonhap)