South Korea’s military says it is investigating the soldier’s reasons for crossing the inner-Korean border. While dozens of North Koreans flee each year, usually via China, crossing directly south is very rare.
“The military secured one North Korean soldier in the central front Tuesday night and relevant authorities are currently investigating the details,” Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a message to the media, including Yonhap.
South Korean news agency Yonhap also reported, without citing a source, that the soldier was believed to wish to defect.
How rare are inter-Korean border crossings?
North and South Korea are separated by a heavily fortified border with a special demarcation area known as the DMZ on either side of the frontier, and secondary buffer zones after that.
Although tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled south since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s, they typically exit via the overland route north to neighboring China. From there they tend to enter a third country such as Thailand before ultimately heading to the South.
In 2024, the last year for which data has been published by South Korea’s Unification Ministry, 236 North Koreans arrived in the South.
Defections across the land border are very rare, though. Much of the frontier is densely forested, the territory is ridden with landmines, and both states’ militaries intensively monitor their respective sides.
Yonhap reports that the overnight crossing is the first such case of 2026.
It said there had been four registered cases since the launch of the Lee Jae Myung administration last June. Two took place in July and the most recent in October, according to Yonhap.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/north-korean-soldier-crosses-border-to-south/a-77687834
