North Korean crossed MDL into South Korea Thursday: JCS

A loudspeaker is seen next to a North Korean guard post in June, in this photo taken from an observatory post just south of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas. Yonhap

A North Korean male, who identified himself as a civilian, crossed the Military Demarcation Line inside the Demilitarized Zone into South Korea, the South's military officials said Friday.

The individual was taken into custody after crossing the midwestern part of the land border on Thursday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters. It has yet to detect any unusual activities among the North Korean military.

“Our military identified the individual in question in the MDL area and proceeded with tracking and monitoring (of the individual),” the JCS said.

“We secured the individual through a normal procedure to guide the individual, and relevant authorities plan to investigate the detailed process (in crossing the border) to the South,” it added.

A JCS official, declining to be named, told reporters that the individual, identified as male, was first detected through a military monitoring device on the South Korean side of the border around 3 a.m. Thursday.

The operation to secure and guide the individual out of the DMZ spanned a total of 20 hours following the initial discovery of the North Korean individual, the official explained.

He was later found by the military in a nearby stream, some 1 meter deep, before they took him into custody.

The North Korean identified himself as a civilian to the South Korean troops and was unarmed. When the man asked the soldiers, "Who are you?" a sergeant replied, "We are the Republic of Korea Armed Forces. We will guide you safely."

The presidential office said they received reports from the military and that the related agencies have launched a probe into the matter, presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said in a Friday morning briefing.

The last time that a North Korean crossed the MDL to defect to the South was Aug. 20. The North Korean, identified as a soldier, crossed the border when the inter-Korean tension was high, with the South conducting full-scale, anti-Pyongyang loudspeaker broadcasts near the border. The broadcasts, now suspended, were carried out in response to the North’s repeated launches of trash-carrying balloons.

The DMZ, a 4-kilometer-wide buffer zone, currently separates the two Koreas. The two Koreas are still technically at war.