North Korea accused of shooting South Korean official and burning body in water

North Korean soldiers shot dead a suspected South Korean defector at sea and burned his body as a precaution for the coronavirus after he was questioned in the water for several hours, Seoul military officials said Thursday.

It is the first killing of a South Korean by North Korean forces in a decade, and it comes with Pyongyang on high alert over the pandemic and stagnant inter-Korean relations.

The fisheries official disappeared from a patrol boat near the western border island of Yeonpyeong on Monday, a South Korean military official told AFP.

More than 24 hours later, North Korean forces located him in its waters and interrogated him from a patrol boat, he said, with his interrogator in protective gear.

He was killed about six hours after being found, according to the official.

“He was shot dead in the water,” he said. “North Korean soldiers poured oil on his body and burned it in the water.

“We assess that it was carried out under the North’s anti-coronavirus measure,” he added.

According to the Defense Ministry, the people who burned the body wore gas masks and protective clothing.

There was no immediate comment from Pyongyang on the incident and the South Korean military’s account could not be independently verified.

Pyongyang closed its borders and declared an emergency to try to protect itself against the virus that first emerged in neighboring China.

The man was wearing a life jacket and his shoes had been found aboard the South Korean ship, the official said, indicators suggesting he entered the water voluntarily.

“We have obtained information that he had expressed his intention to defect while being questioned,” he added.

He declined to go into details about the source of the information. But the South Korean military is known to intercept the radio communications of the Northern forces.

The killing took place after an “order from a higher authority,” Yonhap said, citing South Korean officials.

The Seoul Defense Ministry condemned the shooting as a “scandalous act”. “We strongly advise North Korea that all responsibility for this incident rests with it,” it said in a statement.

South Korean media reports said the man was in his early forties with two children, but had recently been divorced and was in financial trouble.

‘SHOOT TO KILL’

The isolated North, whose dilapidated healthcare system would struggle to cope with a major virus outbreak, has not confirmed a single case of the disease that has spread across the world.

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.

That same month, North Korean officials closed the border city of Kaesong after a defector who had fled to the South three years ago sneaked back across the heavily fortified border, amid fears that he may have carried the coronavirus.

The commander of the United States Forces in Korea, Robert Abrams, said earlier this month that North Korean authorities had issued shoot-to-kill orders to prevent the coronavirus from entering the country from China, creating a “buffer zone” in border.

This week’s incident marks the first time in 10 years that North Korean forces have killed a Southerner.

In November 2010, the Pyongyang Army bombed Yeonpyeong Island, close to this week’s incident, killing two civilians and two Marines.

It came months after a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine sank South Korea’s warship Cheonan, killing 46 sailors, though Pyongyang denies responsibility.

In 2008, a North Korean soldier shot dead a South Korean tourist who entered a forbidden area at the Mount Kumgang North Tourist Complex, prompting Seoul to suspend money-spinning tours.