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North Koreans, including minors, crossed the border with South Korea by boat at the beginning of this month of May 2023. This has been revealed by the South Korean authorities. Two families would have made an unusual journey through the Yellow Sea. This is the first sea crossing to the south by North Koreans since 2017.
From Nicolas Rocca, RFI correspondent in Seoul
On the night of May 6, the South Korean military authorities detected a vessel approaching the maritime demarcation line. Once across the border, the boat was intercepted as it headed for an island northwest of South Korea. It was then that the North Koreans on board announced their intention to defect.
An exceptional maritime epic
The group of defectors is being questioned in Seoul by military and intelligence investigators. This is standard protocol whenever the North Koreans enter the South, as the two countries are technically still at war. This story, reported by the South Korean news agency Yonhap, is unique in many ways. Few North Koreans use this heavily guarded sea route. This group is the first to do so in six years.
drastic controls
Most of them cross the Chinese border and settle there despite the risk of being returned to the country, or attempt the long journey to South Korea, which requires passing through Thailand or Mongolia. But since the start of the pandemic, controls have been dramatically tightened in both Beijing and Pyongyang. The number of defectors counted by the South Korean authorities is in free fall: there were almost 1,000 in 2019, but only about 60 last year.
