North Korean flees through DMZ

A North Korean man has made a daring escape to freedom, traversing on foot one of the world’s most fortified places: the Korean demilitarised zone.

A North Korean military guard post and loudspeaker, top left, and South Korean army soldiers, bottom right, are seen from Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea in June. AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon

A North Korean man made a daring escape to freedom, traversing on foot one of the world’s most fortified places: the Korean demilitarised zone.

He was detected by South Korea’s military around 3am Thursday (local time), according to Seoul’s Defence Ministry, navigating through the land-mine-laden DMZ, which stretches more than 3.2km wide and roughly 240km long.

The man, who identified himself as a civilian, barely moved during the day and took cover under bushes. Not long before midnight, he was in a shallow stream close enough to the South that troops could shout directions.

“Who are you?” the man reportedly asked the soldiers. He was unarmed.

After explaining the group was South Korean armed forces, the team sergeant responded: “We’ll guide you safely.”

Fleeing North Korea over the land border with the South is rare, especially at a time when defections have slowed to a trickle. North Koreans have more typically defected over the Chinese border, before making their way to another country and finding passage to South Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has erected new fencing around the DMZ, rearmed border guards and issued a shoot-on-sight order in the hope of preventing people from leaving.

Relations between Pyongyang and Seoul have soured in recent years, though the two countries recently halted noisy loudspeaker broadcasts along the border. The man has been detained by South Korean authorities, who didn’t offer further details about him or his motives.

The last defection through the DMZ happened roughly a year ago, when a soldier crossed into the South near the east coast.

South Korea’s Defence Ministry said Friday it hadn’t detected any unusual military activity from the Kim regime.

More than 34,000 North Koreans have relocated to the South over recent decades. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, it was typical for more than 1000 North Koreans to arrive in any given year, according to South Korean figures.

But in the first three months of this year, the number of North Koreans who arrived in the South stood at 38.

The Wall Street Journal