Category: DMZ

More details are coming out about the man who defected by swimming in a wet suit and then working his way across the DMZ after landing on the beach:

A North Korean man was caught on military surveillance cameras along the east coast 10 times after he swam ashore in the South last week, but soldiers failed to notice eight of them even after alarm bells rang, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Tuesday.

The announcement was a key point of the results of the JCS’ weeklong probe into the Feb. 16 incident. The North Korean man was ultimately captured more than six hours later inside a restricted area north of the Civilian Control Line in the eastern border town of Goseong.

Yonhap

You can read much more at the link, but the man defected overnight which leads me to believe the ROK Army soldiers manning the cameras were probably sleeping on duty. The man wasn’t detected by the guards manning the camera until the next morning.

The ROK needs to sign this guy up for the Olympics if actually did pull off this swim:

Questions have arisen over how a North Korean man was able to have crossed the inter-Korean sea border to defect by swimming for six hours in winter, and calls have grown for authorities to explain the case.

According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the man, whose identity is withheld, was captured on Tuesday following a three-hour manhunt near the inter-Korean border in the eastern coastal town of Goseong. He expressed his intention to defect.

Defense Minister Suh Wook told lawmakers on Wednesday that the man is believed to have swum for six hours in the East Sea overnight wearing a hard-hat diving suit and a set of fins. Given his footprints were found some 3 kilometers south of the military demarcation line separating the two Koreas, he is likely to have moved around 10 km in the sea.

But many have pointed to unfavorable weather conditions on the day. The water temperature reached 8 degrees Celsius at that time, and a high sea warning was issued in the East Sea. The weather agency also issued a cold wave advisory for most of the country, including Gangwon Province.

“Our judgment based on initial data was that survival in waters of such conditions was not possible. But we learned later that he layered clothes and then tightly wore a waterproof-type suit to keep himself from getting soaked,” Suh said during a parliamentary policy briefing session.

The man, in his 20s, is believed to be familiar with ocean circumstances, according to military sources.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is either a motivated defector or an attempted infiltration:

South Korea’s military is scrutinizing how a presumed North Korean defector managed to get through a seaside drain and into the country early Tuesday, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The man, intercepted at 7:20 a.m. by South Korean troops inside the civilian control line just south of the Demilitarized Zone, apparently swam some part of the way from North Korea in a dive suit before passing through a drain south of the border, according to a translated, text-message update from the joint chiefs Wednesday.

“The person is assumed to have gone up a beach in the vicinity of the Unification Observatory,” south of an observation post, wearing the dive suit and fins, “and then passed through a drain under iron fences along the coast,” the message said.

The incident occurred in the northeastern Gangwon province, a joint chiefs spokesman said. The site description matches the Goseong Unification Observatory near the DMZ on South Korea’s eastern coast. Another defector crossed there in early November.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but reportedly the South Korean military unit did not take appropriate action when security cameras spotted the defector.