A South Korean citizen crossed the heavily armed border into North Korea in apparent desertion.
According to the South Korean military command, the fugitive managed to escape even after hours and hours of searches for him by South Korean troops. He was spotted in the demilitarized zone (DMZ), which separates the two Koreas at around 9 pm place).
There is no information as to whether this unidentified person is still alive, but the South Korean military command has asked neighbors to the north that he be protected.
During the pandemic, the North Korean government adopted a shoot-at-first-sight strategy whenever it tries to enter the country, with the aim of preventing the spread of Covid-19.
In September 2020, North Korean troops shot a South Korean fishing boat, which was lost in the region and later burned. The incident stirred up tempers among neighboring countries, and North Korea issued a rare apology, attributing the mistake to strict anti-Covid policy.
Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared a national emergency during the pandemic and closed a city after a North Korean with symptoms of Covid-19 fled South Korea for the neighboring country to the north.
Restrictions against the spread of the pandemic ended up greatly reducing the number of defections from North Korea to South Korea.
The border between the two countries is one of the most heavily armed regions in the world. It is filled with land mines, an electrified fence, barbed wire, surveillance cameras and military troops.
Most watched border in the world
The so-called “demilitarized zone” is an area covering a stretch 248 km long and 4 km wide. It was created in 1953 as an alternative military containment because of the tension of the war between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea, created in 1948. In that year, the geographical division between the two nations became an international frontier indeed.
The Korean War began in 1950, when the then superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, began to “divide” the world after World War II.
The Soviets had taken control of the northern part of the peninsula, the Americans the southern part.
On June 25, 1950, North Korea, supported by the Soviet Union and China, invaded South Korea. And immediately the United States sent its military forces to help the country fight the “invasion of the communists”.
With the help of Washington, Seoul, the South Korean capital, was recovered within two months.
China, in turn, concerned about the decision of the United States to mobilize its forces to the north to try to reunify the peninsula, intervened in the conflict.
It is estimated that more than 5 million people (among military and civilians) died in the war.
At the 1953 armistice, which ended the war between the two countries, both sides agreed not to carry out any hostile acts within, from, or against that DMZ area.
Currently, the only part of the border where soldiers are permanently face-to-face is the so-called Joint Security Area (JSA) in Panmunjom.
“After the great Korean War, both parties tried to use the place as a propaganda tool to demonstrate how much better each other was,” says Isaac Stone Fish of the Asia Society, a New York-based think tank. ).
It was also in this location that, until March 1991, military negotiations between the United Nations Command (UN) and North Korea took place.
The place that draws the most attention in the Joint Security Area is the building in which a peculiar conference room is located, which has a space that cuts across the two nations. Those who enter it can practically cross the tense boundary line just by walking across the room.
For many years, the site was no more than a point of tension on the 38th Parallel, which serves to demarcate the border between the two Koreas. Over time, Panmunjom has also become one of many places where hundreds of North Koreans were killed trying to desert to the South. Reverse migration is far rarer.
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