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Image posted, Reuters
Kim said the accident shouldn’t have happened
South Korea said it had received a rare personal apology from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the murder of one of its officials.
Kim is reported to have told his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in about the accident that “it couldn’t have happened.”
South Korea said the 47-year-old may have been trying to flee to North Korea when soldiers found him afloat in northern waters.
He added that they killed him and then set his body on fire.
The border between the two Koreas is strictly monitored and North Korea is believed to be implementing a “shoot to kill” policy to prevent the entry of the Corona virus into the country.
And Kim sent his apology in a letter to Moon, according to the South Korean president’s office.
In the letter, the bureau said, Kim expressed “deep regret” for his “disappointment” in Moon and the South Korean people.
North Korea also presented the results of the investigation into the accident, in which it said 10 bullets were fired at a man who entered northern waters, who refused to reveal his identity, and also tried to escape, according to the Director of National Security in South Korea, Soh Hun.
Pyongyang made it clear that it did not burn the man’s body, but the raft in which he was traveling.
He added that the soldiers did not find the person after they opened fire, so they burned the equipment that he left in accordance with the measures to prevent the spread of the Corona virus.
What happened to the man?
The man, a father of two children who worked for the Ministry of Maritime Fisheries, was patrolling his boat 10 kilometers from the border with the north, near Yuombe Yueng Island, when he disappeared on Monday, according to the Korean Ministry of Defense. South.
He left his shoes in the pot. Southern media reported that the man was in financial difficulties and had eventually divorced his wife.
A north guard patrol found the man in a life jacket at sea at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday.
The patrollers wore masks to interrogate the man from a distance, before orders came from “higher authorities” to kill him, for which they shot him at sea.
How was the reaction in the south?
President Moon Jae described the incident as “horrible and cannot be tolerated.” He urged the North to take responsible action regarding what happened.
The National Security Council in the south said that the north could not “justify the murder and burning of the body of an unarmed citizen who did not put up resistance.”
Officials said they scrutinized “multiple intelligence information,” but it’s unclear how they collected this information.
According to reports by Agence France-Presse, the military emergency communication line between the two Koreas has been cut since June, and North Korea has demolished the communications office that was built to facilitate talks between the two sides, but it is known that the South Korean army is picking up North Korean communications by radio.
What is the background?
Kim’s apology comes in circumstances marked by the deterioration of relations between the two countries, as well as the hardening of the dispute with Washington over Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
South Korea has asked its neighbor to the North to apologize more than once, but has rarely won. Pyongyang refused to apologize for the sinking of a southern warship in 2010, which killed 46 neighbors, and denied responsibility for the accident. That same year, he refused to apologize for the bombing of a southern island, in which two soldiers and two construction workers were killed.
Image posted, fake images
The man was patrolling his boat near the border between the two countries.
North Korea is believed to have stepped up measures to prevent the entry of the Corona virus as it prepares to hold celebrations to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the ruling party on October 10.
Pyongyang closed its borders with China in January to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In July, local media reported that authorities had maximized emergency measures.
The commander of US forces in South Korea, Robert Abrams, said last month that North Korea had established a new buffer zone on its border with China, a depth of one to two kilometers, and that special forces had issued orders with them to shoot and kill anyone who tried to cross the border.
North Korea has previously expelled people who entered its land lost. In 2017, North Korea’s official news agency said officials would return a South Korean fishing boat that had entered northern waters “illegally,” a move described as a rare humanitarian situation.
