A South Korean citizen crossed the line to North Korea from the South on New Years Day. According to the South Korean army, the individual was detected – Saturday January 1, at 9:20 p.m. local time – by surveillance equipment in the “Demilitarized zone” (DMZ) which divides the Korean Peninsula.
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An unsuccessful search operation was launched by the South Korean military who did not spot any unusual activity on the part of their North Korean counterparts. Authorities in Seoul have sent a message to the North regarding the incident but the person has not yet been identified.
30,000 defections to the South
Years of repression and poverty in North Korea led more than 30,000 people to flee to the South in the decades following the Korean War (1950-1953), but crossings in the other direction are extremely rare. In 2020, North Korean troops following killing him burned the body of a South Korean fisheries official who Pyongyang said had illegally crossed the sea border.
The vast majority of North Koreans who escape first go to China before heading south, usually via another country. Only a few dared to cross the DMZ, one of the most fortified areas in the world, strewn with mines, surrounded by electric fences, barbed wire, surveillance cameras and armed guards, on alert 24 hours a day.
Economic development
Lately, measures related to the Covid-19 pandemic, prolonged lockdowns and restrictions on freedom of movement within the country have reduced the number of North Korean defectors arriving in the South. At a meeting of the party’s central committee on Friday, December 31, Kim Jong-un emphasized economic development and food security, described as “Great battle between life and death”.
“It is important to take a decisive step in solving the problems linked to the daily needs of the population”, declared the North Korean leader while evoking, in a jumble, an ambitious plan of rural development, the feeding of the people, the school uniforms and the need to suppress the “Non-socialist practices”.
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North Korea experienced its biggest economic recession in two decades in 2020, according to South Korea’s central bank. The leader admitted in June that his country was facing a “Tense food situation”. In October, a United Nations human rights expert warned that the most vulnerable were “Threatened with famine”.
Armament program
Kim Jong-un also cited the strengthening of North Korean military capabilities as a major achievement of the past year. The deterioration of the economic situation linked to the pandemic did not prevent Pyongyang from developing its weapons program. In 2021, North Korea said it had successfully tested several new types of missiles.
Negotiations with the United States have stalled since the failure in 2019 of the meeting between Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump. The Biden administration has repeatedly declared its readiness to meet with North Korean officials, but Pyongyang has so far rejected the offer.
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