The Military Didn't Know About the Defection for 3 Hours This Time Either

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] One person presumed to be a South Korean national crossed the frontline fence in the eastern front of Gangwon Province on the 1st, but it is known that our military was unaware of the defection to the North for about three hours.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff announced on the 2nd, "At around 9:20 p.m. yesterday (the 1st), an unidentified individual was detected by surveillance equipment within the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of the eastern front. Operational forces were deployed to secure the individual, and during the DMZ operation, it was confirmed that the person crossed the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) and defected to the North at around 10:40 p.m."

The initial detection time of the unidentified individual by the military was around 6:40 p.m. on the same day. At that time, the individual was captured on scientific surveillance equipment crossing the GOP (General Outpost) fence. However, the military did not detect this at the time and only launched the operation to secure the individual three hours later.

A Joint Chiefs of Staff official stated, "The individual was captured on CCTV of the scientific surveillance equipment, but the CCTV monitoring soldier did not recognize it at the time, and the defection was confirmed later during playback."

The current status of the defector's life is unknown. The Joint Chiefs of Staff official said, "For the protection of our citizen, a notification was sent to the North through the military communication line in the East Sea region this morning." So far, no unusual movements by the North Korean military have been detected.

However, concerns have been raised as this defection occurred while North Korea was implementing strict quarantine measures to block COVID-19. In September 2020, a public official in his 40s who went missing while on a fisheries guidance ship near Soyeonpyeongdo, the northernmost island in the West Sea, was reportedly shot dead in North Korean waters. At that time, North Korea claimed the action was in accordance with the "national emergency quarantine regulations."

Earlier in July of the same year, when a defector in his 20s crossed to the North through a drainage channel in Wolmigot, Ganghwa Island, Incheon, North Korea claimed that a "suspected COVID-19 infected person" had defected. Kim Jong-un convened an emergency expanded meeting of the Party Political Bureau and elevated the national emergency quarantine system to the "maximum emergency system."

Notably, the military only became aware of that incident after it was announced through North Korean reports, which sparked controversy.

Meanwhile, the unit where this defection occurred is responsible for guarding the rugged mountainous terrain and long coastline of Gangwon Province, and is known as a "graveyard" for commanders due to frequent incidents and accidents.

In this unit, in February last year, a North Korean man defected to the South by wearing "duck feet" fins and passing through a broken drainage channel near the Goseong Unification Observatory coastline. Three months earlier, in November 2020, a North Korean man who crossed the frontline fence was discovered by a mobile search team 14 hours and 30 minutes later, raising questions about the initial response. At that time, the North Korean man had moved 1.5 km south from the GOP fence. In October 2012, the unit also experienced the so-called "knock defection," where a North Korean soldier knocked on a military post door to express his intention to defect.

Since these incidents, the military authorities have taken measures such as improving the performance of scientific surveillance equipment, but they failed to prevent the defector from crossing the fence in this case as well.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.