“He is not going to die,“ one of the soldier’s doctors in South Korea said Tuesday.
United Nations Command on Tuesday released dramatic footage of a North Korean soldier defecting from his country and fleeing south across the Demilitarized Zone last week only to be fired upon by his fellow border guards.
Video captured by closed circuit television shows the moments the unnamed soldier, thought to be in his 20s, sped through the DMZ in a jeep past North Korean checkpoints as he was pursued by guards carrying weapons. The jeep later veered into a ditch before the soldier jumped out and ran across the border, where four of his comrades can be seen firing upon him.
Crazy CCTV footage just broadcast of the defection of a North Korean soldier at the DMZ last week pic.twitter.com/YznANH1yt0
South Korean soldiers quickly moved to rescue the soldier and bring him to safety.
The man was shot at least five times and is in critical condition at a South Korean hospital. Doctors said Wednesday he had regained consciousness after having two operations to remove bullets from his body, according to Reuters.
“He is fine,” Lee Cook-Jong, the lead surgeon, said at a news conference.
