A warning sign in Korean and English near the Korean Demilitarized Zone photographed on April 2, 2025. (Brendan Trembath/U.N. Command)
A North Korean soldier who earlier this week crossed the Military Demarcation Line — the border between the two Koreas — was taken into custody by the South Korean military, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“Our military secured one North Korean soldier on the central front” on Tuesday night, the Joint Chiefs said in a text message to reporters Wednesday.
The South Korean military said relevant agencies are investigating the circumstances of the crossing but released no further information.
The soldier expressed an intent to defect, Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday without citing a source for that information.
The incident marks the fourth known crossing by a North Korean since South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung took office last June, according to the Yonhap report.
Two previous cases involved civilians.
On July 3, South Korean surveillance equipment detected an unidentified North Korean man in a shallow stream along the midwestern part of the border. Seoul dispatched troops to the area and guided the man out of the Demilitarized Zone.
In a separate incident, another North Korean civilian crossed the Han River estuary west of the inter-Korean border and was taken into custody by South Korean authorities on July 31, Yonhap reported Aug. 7.
The most recent known crossing before Tuesday occurred Oct. 19 when a North Korean soldier crossed the central section of the Military Demarcation Line. Shortly after that soldier defected, South Korean troops fired warning shots at two other North Korean soldiers who briefly crossed the fortified inter-Korean border that same day.
The two soldiers came within 220 yards of a South Korean guard post but immediately retreated after the warning shots were fired.
The Ministry of National Defense said at the time that the two soldiers appeared several hours after the first crossing and that it could not determine whether the two incidents were connected.
