SEOUL, Aug 8: A North Korean has defected to the South across a de facto maritime border in the Yellow Sea, Seoul's military said Thursday.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s.
The latest defection comes as relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with the North ramping up weapons testing and bombarding the South with trash-carrying balloons.
"The South Korean military has secured a suspected North Korean individual and handed them over to the relevant authorities", Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said, adding there has been no unusual movement by the North Korean military detected.
"Relevant authorities are currently investigating the exact process of the defection and whether the individual wishes to defect to the South," it added.
The individual arrived "on foot" early Thursday on Gyodong island, off the peninsula's west coast near the border between the Koreas, and "two defectors had been initially spotted, raising the possibility that one of them may have failed to cross", the Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed military sources.
Other South Korean media reported Thursday that two North Koreans attempted to defect to the South through the border island, less than five kilometres (3.1 miles) from North Korea.
Most defectors go overland to neighbouring China first, then enter a third country such as Thailand before finally making it to the South.
The number of successful escapes dropped significantly from 2020 after the North sealed its borders -- purportedly with shoot-on-sight orders along the land frontier with China -- to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
But the number of defectors making it to the South almost tripled last year to 196, Seoul said in January, with more elite diplomats and students seeking to escape, up from 67 in 2022.
South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik told a parliamentary committee that an investigation was "underway by the relevant authorities". —AFP
