A man who left North Korea in 2017, has gone back illegally, but with the pandemic, this time he has caught the eye of authorities
The North Korean flag. Picture: NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES/CHRIS JUNGLast week, a 24-year-old defector returned to North Korea the way he left in 2017, authorities say, but with a coronavirus pandemic raging in the background this time, his illicit trip drew far more attention.
South Korean military chief Park Han-ki told parliament on Tuesday that Kim, who is 163cm tall and weighs 54kg, cut his way through barbed wire fences installed at the end of the pipe leading to the river. When that industrial project was shut down amid rising tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme in 2016, the economic shock prompted Kim to try his luck in the South in 2017, he said in a YouTube video filmed with a fellow defector in South Korea in June.
He started swimming, following the lights on the southern bank of the river. When he finally made land, he let out a cry for help, and was found by a unit of South Korean soldiers. According to police, a female defector in her 20s filed a complaint on June 12, accusing Kim of sexually assaulting her at his home. They interviewed him once on June 21, and he denied the accusations. The investigation gathered steam when one of Kim’s acquaintances reported to police on July 19 that he threatened the woman and planned to flee to the North, a police official said.
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