US national detained in North Korea for illegally crossing heavily fortified border
A United States national has been taken into custody by North Korea after the former crossed the heavily fortified border from South Korea, the United Nations Command overseeing the area said on Tuesday.
The UN Command said that the national had entered North Korea without authorisation while the US national was on a tour to the Korean border village of Panmunjom.
The tweet mentioned that he is currently in North Korean custody and that the UN Command is working with its North Korean counterparts to resolve the incident.
It gave no further details on who the person is or why he crossed the border.
The last time there was a defection at the Joint Security Area was in 2017, when a North Korean soldier drove a military jeep then ran on foot across the demarcation line at Panmunjom.
He was shot multiple times by his fellow North Korean soldiers as they sought to prevent his escape, but after hours of surgery, he survived.
Cases of Americans or South Koreans defecting to North Korea are rare, though more than 30,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea to avoid political oppression and economic difficulties since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
Panmunjom, located inside the 248-kilometer (154-mile) -long Demilitarized Zone, was created at the close of the Korean War. Bloodshed and gunfire have occasionally occurred there, but it has also been a venue for numerous talks and a popular tourist spot.
The area is jointly overseen by the UN Command and North Korea.
In November 2017, North Korean soldiers fired 40 rounds as one of their colleagues raced toward freedom. The soldier was hit five times before he was found beneath a pile of leaves on the southern side of Panmunjom. He survived and is now in South Korea.
The apparent defection comes as relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points ever, with diplomacy stalled and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un calling for increased weapons development, including tactical nuclear weapons.
(With agency inputs)
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Updated: 18 Jul 2023, 04:39 PM IST
