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THE LEADER OF NORTH KOREA, Kim Jong Un, apologized for the killing of a South Korean at sea, calling it an “unexpected and shameful event.”
The fisheries official was shot and killed on Tuesday by North Korean soldiers, and South Korea says his body was set on fire while still in the water, apparently as a precaution against Covid-19 infection.
It was the first murder of a South Korean national by North Korean forces in a decade and sparked outrage in the south.
Kim apologized “for disappointing President Moon and the South Koreans” rather than helping them in the face of the “malicious coronavirus,” said Suh Hoon, the South’s national security adviser.
Apologies from the North, much less from Kim personally, are extremely rare, and the message comes at a tense moment for both countries amid a showdown in nuclear negotiations between the North and the United States.
Suh was reading a letter from the department of the ruling Northern party responsible for relations with the South.
In it, North Korea acknowledged having fired around 10 shots at the man, who said he had “illegally entered” the country’s waters and refused to properly identify himself.
Border guards shot him in accordance with current instructions, he said.
His body was no longer visible after the shooting and troops set fire to his flotation device, which was covered in blood, in accordance with national emergency prevention regulations.
South Korean military officials say the man was questioned while in the water for several hours and allegedly expressed a desire to defect, but said he was killed after an “order from a higher authority.”
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The man, wearing a life jacket, disappeared from a patrol boat near the western border island of Yeonpyeong on Monday, and North Korean forces located him in its waters more than 24 hours later.
South Korean media reports said that he was in his forties and had two children, but had recently been divorced and was in financial trouble.
– © AFP 2020
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