North Korean soldier defects to South Korea across heavily fortified border

SEOUL, South Korea — A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea across the rivals’ heavily fortified border on Sunday, South Korea’s military said.

The military took the custody of the soldier who crossed the central portion of the land border, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. It said the soldier expressed a desire to resettle in South Korea.

It was the first reported defection by a North Korean soldier since a North Korean staff sergeant fled to South Korea via the border’s eastern section in August 2024.

Despite the two border crossings, it isn’t common for North Koreans to defect via the land border.

Unlike its official name, the Demilitarized Zone, the 248-kilometer (155-mile) -long, 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) -wide border is guarded by land mines, tank traps, barbed wire fences and combat troops. In 2017, when a fleeing North Korean soldier sprinted across the border, North Korean soldiers fired about 40 rounds, before South Korean soldiers could drag the wounded soldier to safety.

A vast majority of about 34,000 North Koreans who have fled to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War came via China, which shares a long, porous border with North Korea.

Relations between the two Koreas remain strained, with North Korea repeatedly rejecting outreach by South Korea’s liberal President Lee Jae Myung, who took office in June with a vow to restore reconciliation between the rivals.