For the very first time in a decade, a soldier of North Korea managed to defect to South Korea through the strongly guarded border, separating the two countries, a South Korean official informed on Monday 28 April. An official at the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff revealed that a North Korean officer had come to a South Korean guard post on Sunday on the western part of the frontier.

 

As per a media report, one military official from South Korea who did not want his name to be disclosed said that the 28-year-old second lieutenant recognized only by his surname ‘Ri’, told South Korean guards that he wished to seek asylum in the South. The Joint Chiefs of Staff official, however, refrained from confirming this news report.

 

Defections across the North-South border are rare. The large number of North Koreans who do run away from their communist homeland do so by traveling through China and Southeast Asia before reaching the South. As per South Korea's Unification Ministry, over 12,250 North Koreans, generally comprising civilians, have arrived in the South since the Korean War.