Barbed wire fences overcome – how is unclear
When the man was picked up, he expressed his wish to stay in South Korea, the national news agency Yonhap quoted military officials as saying. The military assume that it is a civilian. So far it is unclear how he was able to get over the barbed wire fences that secure the border line on both sides. The demarcation line runs through a four-kilometer-wide buffer zone, most of which is still mined.
For the search operation, the border troops were reportedly placed on special alert, which applies in the event that armed soldiers from North Korea may have penetrated. The alarm was later lifted.
Before the pandemic began, large numbers of people fled from hunger and oppression almost every year in largely isolated North Korea. It rarely happens that people cross the inner-Korean border directly to South Korea. In most cases, North Koreans flee across the border into China. Many of them get to South Korea via third countries.
