South Korean General Sacked Over Defector’s Return

Seoul, July 31 (AFP/APP):A South Korean marine major-general was relieved of his command Friday after the military failed to prevent a man’s illegal defection back to the North, officials said.

The man’s departure only came to light when Pyongyang — which insists it has not had any coronavirus cases — announced at the weekend that a “runaway” who had returned across the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone was suspected of having the disease.

Defections from the South to the North are extremely rare, and doubly so across the DMZ, which divides the peninsula and is one of the world’s most secure borders. But the South Korean military later confirmed a 24-year-old man surname Kim had gone North by crawling through a drainage channel on Ganghwa island, northwest of Seoul, and then swimming across the Han river.

On Friday, the joint chiefs of staff (JCS) said that Kim was detected on his journey seven times by surveillance cameras or thermal observation devices, but the military did not intervene. A guard at a post about 200 metres from the water conduit spotted “lights” when Kim arrived in a taxi at 2:18 am, but took no action, they added.

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