Native media reported that the defector walked alongside the street by the waterfront in jap Gangwon province, and was carrying their North Korean army uniform after they have been picked up by authorities.
It’s the second defection throughout the border between the Koreas in simply two weeks, after one other North Korean made it across the de facto maritime border within the Yellow Sea on Aug 8.
The defections come as relations between the 2 Koreas are at one in every of their lowest factors in years, with the North ramping up weapons testing and bombarding the South with trash-carrying balloons.
The variety of profitable defections dropped considerably from 2020 after the North sealed its borders – purportedly with shoot-on-sight orders alongside the land frontier with China – to stop the unfold of COVID-19.
However after border controls eased in 2023, the variety of defectors making it to the South virtually tripled final 12 months to 196, Seoul mentioned in January, with extra elite diplomats and college students in search of to flee, up from 67 in 2022.
Final week, North Korean tour operations unexpectedly introduced that the nation would reopen to international vacationers this winter.
