Seoul condemns North Korean military's shooting of official as 'act of atrocity'
A South Korean official who went missing near the inter-Korean sea border this week while reportedly seeking to defect was shot dead by North Korean soldiers, the South's military confirmed on Thursday. The 47-year-old official's body was immediately cremated by the North.
"We strongly condemn this act of atrocity," Lieutenant General Ahn Yong-ho said. "We firmly demand the North to offer explanations in detail and sternly punish those responsible."
The official affiliated with the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries was on duty aboard a 500-ton government boat when he disappeared around noon on Monday. His shoes were found left on the vessel, suggesting he intentionally went overboard. An intensive search operation produced no results. A South Korean military official said the man was apparently attempting to defect to the North.
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A day after he went missing, the man was spotted by a North Korean fishing boat. North Korea sent officials wearing gas masks to learn why he was there on Tuesday afternoon. Later in the day, a North Korean navy boat came and opened fire at him, South Korea's Defence Ministry said.
Sailors from the boat, wearing gas masks and protective suits, poured petrol on his body and set it aflame, the Defence Ministry said, citing intelligence gathered by surveillance equipment and other assets.
North Korean soldiers deployed along the borders with China and the South are instructed to shoot-to-kill as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus.
Most defections involve North Koreans heading to the South but there have been a number of high-profile crossings in the opposite direction this year.
In July, a man who had defected to South Korea three years ago raised a coronavirus scare when he crossed back over the heavily monitored border into North Korea, which has claimed to have zero cases of the disease.
His arrival prompted North Korean officials to lock down a border city and quarantine thousands of people over fears he may have had coronavirus, although the World Health Organization later said his test results were inconclusive.
Last week, South Korean police arrested a defector who they said had tried to return to North Korea by breaking into a military training site in South Korea's border town of Cheorwon.
The latest incident recalled the infamous 2008 incident when a North Korean soldier shot dead a South Korean tourist who wandered into a restricted military area at the North's Mount Kumgang resort. The death of Park Wang-ja brought an end to cross-border tours of Mount Kumgang, a highly symbolic project for reconciliation between the two countries.
In 2010, a South Korean military vessel sank near the sea border off the western coast, resulting in the deaths of 46 sailors. Seoul said the vessel was torpedoed by a North Korean submarine.
Later that year, North Korea shelled the Yeonpyeong island as retaliation against Seoul's live-fire military drill near the sea border, leaving four South Koreans dead.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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