South Korea has taken a North Korean soldier into custody who defected by crossing the heavily militarized border, with motives that are still under investigation.
The South Korean authorities did not reveal the exact process of defection, stating that “relevant authorities” are still investigating the incident. Reportedly, the South Korean military captured the individual wearing the military uniform while walking in the bordering region of Gangwon province. Officials from Seoul’s defense ministry also refused to give any specific details of the incident and only stated that the country’s military captured an individual believed to have crossed into the country from North Korea.
On August 8, the South Korean military arrested another individual who crossed the maritime borders of South Korea in the Yellow Sea. These defections came at a time when the Korean peninsula is at the brink of a war, as North’s Kim Jong Un continues to assert his military dominance in the region by further weaponizing the already tense border.
This has urged the United States and South Korea to take their military collaboration to new heights as the two countries are displaying their aerial supremacy these days in the latest joint military exercise, Ulchi Freedom Shield.
Even before these exercises, almost 28,500 US soldiers were already present in South Korea to combat the rising threat of Kim Jong Un, who recently allowed his forces to preemptively use nukes against countries that pose a threat to his regime. North Korea has often denounced the Ulchi Freedom Shield drills and called it a blatant US rehearsal for a nuclear war.
Due to the limited aerial power, Pyongyang aims to tackle these drills by further increasing its missile fleet. Recently, the North deployed 250 nuclear-capable missile launchers at the frontlines just along its border with the South, with geopolitical experts raising concerns that even a bit of miscalculation here can push the world into an all-out war.
Every year, hundreds of oppressed people try to escape North Korea, but crossing the country’s border with the South is a rare phenomenon, as it contains extraordinary risks.
Historically, most North Koreans have managed to enter the South by first entering China, but these defections reduced dramatically when the North sealed its border with China to stop the COVID outbreak during the pandemic and issued shoot-on-sight orders at the border.
According to Seoul data, almost 196 North Koreans, mostly diplomats and students, entered the South last year after the North opened its border with China.
