SEOUL: North Korea said yesterday it would send home a South Korean man who entered the country illegally in a rare case of a defection to the impoverished communist state.
The man, identified as Kim Sang-Gun, was “intercepted” after entering the North illegally through a third country, North Korea’s Red Cross Society said according to state-run news agency KCNA.
It quoted Kim as telling investigators that he had entered the North “after finding it difficult to live in South Korea”, but did not say when he crossed over.
But North Korean officials have decided to send Kim back to the South, it said, without explaining why Pyongyang is sending him home, apparently against his will.
The North’s Red Cross Society offered to repatriate Kim on September 11 through the border truce village of Panmunjom.
Seoul’s Unification Ministry said yesterday that they have accepted the North’s offer to return Kim. The few defectors that North Korea does receive are usually allowed to remain in the secretive state.
AFP
