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SEOUL, South Korea – A South Korean official attempting to defect to North Korea was killed by North Korean troops who set his body on fire for fear that he could carry the coronavirus, South Korean officials said Thursday.
President Moon Jae-in of South Korea called the killing “an impressive and deeply regrettable act that cannot be tolerated,” his aides said. The Southern Defense Ministry called it “atrocious” and demanded that the North punish those responsible.
North Korea has yet to comment on the shooting. If confirmed by North Korean officials, it would be the first time North Korea has killed a South Korean citizen on its territory since 2008. This week’s episode threatened to further derail diplomatic relations between the two countries. He also threatened to undermine South Korean support for his government’s recent efforts to improve relations with North Korea through humanitarian aid.
With all official channels for inter-Korean dialogue cut off since June, the South had few options to force an apology or explanation from North Korea.
The name of the 47-year-old South Korean fisheries official was not released. But he was the first mate on a government ship monitoring fishing boats six miles south of a disputed western maritime border with North Korea early Monday. He disappeared after excusing himself from the cockpit and exiting. Later, his companions found his shoes on the stern of the ship.
South Korean Navy and Coast Guard ships and planes began an exhaustive search for the man, but were unable to find him before he headed into North Korean waters. A North Korean fishing patrol boat found the man wearing a life jacket and clinging to a floating device on Tuesday afternoon, South Korean officials said.
Hours later, a North Korean Navy ship approached the man and opened fire on command of his superiors, although it was clear he was trying to defect, South officials said. North Korean soldiers wearing gas masks and other protective equipment poured oil on his body and set it on fire, they said.
On Thursday, the Southern Defense Ministry said that it had “confirmed from the analysis of various intelligence services that the North fired at our citizen found in its waters and that his body was cremated.”
The Coast Guard said Thursday that the man appeared to have been trying to defect to the North because he was wearing a life jacket when they found him in North Korean waters. Suh Dong-sam, a senior Coast Guard official, also said that before disappearing, the man had complained about his mounting debt to his colleagues.
“Our military strongly condemns this heinous act and strongly urges North Korea to explain its act to us and punish those responsible,” said Lt. Gen. Ahn Young-ho, a senior official with the US Army Joint Chiefs of Staff office. South Korea. .
In the past, when North Korea encountered fishermen or deserters from the South in its territories, it usually detained them alive and sometimes returned them.
But in 2008, North Korean soldiers shot and killed a tourist who had wandered away from a jointly run resort in the southeastern corner of North Korea. Tensions over that assassination, as well as the North’s nuclear weapons program, led the South to withdraw from the joint Kumgang Mountain tourism project later that year.
The assassination of the South Korean official comes at a delicate moment in inter-Korean relations. In his online speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, the South Korean leader reiterated his call for dialogue and peace on the Korean peninsula.
Moon also called for international support as he revived his diplomatic efforts to persuade North Korea and the United States to sign a political declaration ending the 1950-53 Korean War as the first step toward permanent peace and denuclearization of the peninsula. . Technically, the peninsula is still in a state of war because the conflict was only stopped by a truce.
On Thursday, Moon’s office ordered the South Korean military to tighten security along the disputed western maritime border, the site of military clashes in the past, and demanded that North Korea “apologize for an act against the humanity”.
“The act of North Korean soldiers shooting and killing our unarmed citizen who showed no signs of resistance and damaging his body cannot be justified with any excuse,” said Suh Choo-suk, deputy director of national security at the presidential Blue House.
Relations between the two nations have been shrinking for weeks. In June, the North blew up a jointly run liaison office in a fit of anger against the South. In July, North Korea closed its city of Kaesong near its border with South Korea after a North Korean man who had defected to the South three years ago swam across the western border to return to the city.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared a “maximum” national emergency for fear the man “has been infected with the vicious virus.” But South Korean officials have said there is no evidence the man carried the coronavirus.
North Korea said at the time that it was investigating a military unit for failing to detain the fugitive at the inter-Korean border, and that it planned to “administer severe punishment and take necessary measures.”
South Korean officials suspect that North Korea’s violent act against the South Korean official this week was due to his fear of the coronavirus. Such fear has led North Korea to keep its borders closed since January. This month, Gen. Robert B. Abrams, the commander of the US Army in South Korea, said that North Korea had deployed stormtroopers along its border with China on “shoot to kill” orders to prevent smugglers. to bring the coronavirus.
North Korea has insisted that it has no confirmed cases of Covid-19 in its territory. But outside experts have expressed skepticism, warning that an outbreak could prove disastrous in the North, given its decrepit public health capacity and chronically undernourished population.
