SEOUL • A North Korean soldier escaped to the South yesterday across the heavily guarded Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that divides the peninsula, triggering gunfire on both sides of the tense border, in the second defection in successive months..
SEOUL • A North Korean soldier escaped to the South yesterday across the heavily guarded Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that divides the peninsula, triggering gunfire on both sides of the tense border, in the second defection in successive months.
The „low-ranking“ soldier was spotted by South Korean soldiers using surveillance equipment as he crossed the mid-western part of the land border in thick fog and made his way to a guard post, a spokesman for Seoul’s Defence Ministry said.
There were no shots at the time, he said, but about 90 minutes later South Korean troops fired around 20 rounds from a K-3 machine gun to warn off Northern guards who had approached the border apparently looking for their comrade.
Two bursts of gunfire were later heard in the North, the spokesman said, but there were no indications of any bullets crossing the border.
The incident came a month after a rare and dramatic defection by a North Korean soldier under a hail of bullets from his own side at Panmunjom, the truce village where opposing forces confront each other across a concrete dividing line.
On that occasion, the defector drove to the heavily guarded border at speed and ran across the border as North Korean troops fired at him.
