SEOUL, Jan 3, Reuters - A person seen crossing the heavily fortified border from South Korea into North Korea last week is believed to be a North Korean who has previously defected to the South, Yonhap news agency reported on Monday.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff JCS said it carried out a search operation after detecting the person on Saturday, https://www.reuters.com. com world asia-pacific south-korean crosses-armed border - rare defection-north -- 2022 -- 01 -- 02 on the eastern side of the Demilitarized Zone DMZ separating the two Koreas.
According to Yonhap, the authorities presume that the person is a North Korean defector and are in the process of verifying related facts.
The defector is suspected of being a man who has used his experience as a gymnast to cross border fences and defect to the south across the DMZ in the same area in 2020, Yonhap said.
The border crossing in South Korea, which is illegal, came as North Korea began to impose strict anti-coronaviruses measures since shutting borders in early 2020, though it has not confirmed any infections.
While thousands of North Koreans have settled in the South, crossings of the DMZ are rare, with most defectors making their way through China.
There are only a handful of deaths in recent years from South to North across the DMZ.