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SEOUL: North Korean forces shot dead a South Korean fisheries official who disappeared from a patrol boat and ended up in Pyongyang waters, the Seoul Defense Ministry said Thursday, calling it a “scandalous act.”
The 47-year-old man was aboard a boat near the western border island of Yeonpyeong, the ministry said in a statement.
After analyzing the intelligence, the South Korean military had “confirmed that North Korea shot a South Korean citizen found in the North Seas and that his body was cremated,” he said.
“We strongly advise North Korea that all responsibility for this incident rests with him,” he added.
It was not immediately clear how the man got into the water.
Previous reports said his shoes were found aboard the patrol boat, leading to speculation that he may have been trying to defect.
In July, a North Korean defector who had fled south three years ago slipped across the heavily fortified border into the impoverished nation.
Their crossing prompted North Korean officials to close the border city of Kaesong amid fears that it may have carried the coronavirus.
The commander of the United States Forces in Korea, Robert Abrams, said earlier this month that North Korean authorities issued shoot-to-kill orders to prevent the coronavirus from entering the country from China, creating a “buffer zone” in the border with special forces soldiers ready to kill.
The isolated North, whose health system in shambles would struggle to cope with a major virus outbreak, has not confirmed a single case of the disease that has plagued the world since it first emerged in China, the country’s key ally. North.
Pyongyang closed its border with China in January to try to prevent contamination, and in July state media said it had raised its state of emergency to the highest level.
