A North Korean man with diving gear swam to South Korea on Tuesday in an apparent attempt to dispense with Kim Jong Un’s Hermit Kingdom, the South Korean military said on Wednesday.
The man, who is allegedly in his twenties, apparently swam across the maritime border and crawled through a drainage pipe under a barbed wire fence, the South Korean Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a press release quoted by the country’s JoongAng Daily newspaper .
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He was first seen at 4:20 a.m. in a closed circuit room passing by a military checkpoint, but was only caught three hours later when he entered the restricted civilian control zone, the military said. The area is south of the 2.5 kilometer wide demilitarized zone, or DMZ, which serves as a buffer between the two Koreas.
The army admitted that he did not act quickly and caught the man.
“Our military has not taken appropriate action, although the man has been tracked down several times in his surveillance system since he landed,” the military told The New York Times.
South Korean military personnel patrol on June 15, 2020, along the barbed wire fence in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea. (AP Photo / Ahn Young-joon) – File
Military officials are investigating the man’s motive for crossing the border and how he managed to swim in the winter, according to JoongAng Daily.
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The man is reportedly a citizen who told the South he wanted to invade the North.
The JCS said a diving suit and fins were found on the beach in Goseong, Gangwon, where he first landed. It said the suit was not made of rubber and used a detachable metal helmet often used by North Korean fishermen.
“We take this situation seriously and are currently conducting an investigation with the Ground Forces Command,” the military said in a statement. “We will take follow-up action and act strictly according to the results of the investigation.”
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The apparent deviation would be the second in a matter of months after a North Korean man climbed a border fence in November and walked half a mile before the South caught him, reports The Times.