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The official says the man who crossed into North Korea last week was a deserter who fought in the new life in the South.
Who owns it cross Last week South Korea’s strongest border with North Korea was a Northern deserter who fought in his new life, according to officials and the media.
Tuesday’s news sparked a new debate over how these deserters are being treated in the South Korean country and raised doubts as to whether they are receiving adequate assistance after a dangerous journey. impoverished, tightly controlled North To the rich and democratic South.
A South Korean military official told Reuters that he was a 30-year-old man who had crossed the desert just over a year ago when he returned to the desert.
The official said he was living a poor life as a porter in the South Korean capital, Seoul.
“I would say he was classified as a lower class, he was almost making a living,” the official said, without elaborating on his privacy concerns.
A South Korean official also mentioned that the man had a “difficult life” in his new home.
The official dismissed concerns that the former fugitive could be a spy, saying the man did not have a job that would allow him to access sensitive information.
The South Korean military, which has been set on fire for breaking the border, has launched an investigation into how the North Korean man escaped from the guards, although he was captured by surveillance cameras a few hours before crossing the border.
North Korean officials have not commented on the incident and the state media have not reported it.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that the man had been offered security protection and other care by police in northern Seoul district of Nowon, who expressed concern about his return to the North in June.
But he said no action had been taken due to a lack of specific evidence.
Police declined to comment.
An official from the Seoul Unification Ministry, which handles cross-border issues, said on Tuesday that the translator had received government support for personal security, housing, medical treatment and employment.
The man had little contact with neighbors and was seen throwing his belongings a day before the border crossing, Yonhap reported.
“He was taking a mattress and a bed bed to the landfills that morning, and it was weird because they were all too new,” a neighbor told Yonhap. “I thought we’d ask for it, but in the end we didn’t do it, because we never said ‘hello’ to each other.”
As of September, about 33,800 North Koreans had relocated to South Korea, daring to embark on a long and dangerous journey — usually through China — in search of a new life, fleeing poverty and oppression at home.
Since 2012, only 30 deserters have been confirmed to have returned to the North, according to the Unification Ministry.
But deserters and activists say there may be more unknown cases among those struggling to adjust to life in the South.
About 56 percent of outcasts are classified as low-income, according to ministry data sent to deserter Ji Seong-ho, a lawmaker. National subsidies for basic living are six times the lowest level, almost six times the ratio of the general population.
In a survey published last month by the North Korean Human Rights Database Center and NK Social Research, 18 percent of the 407 fugitives surveyed said they were ready to return to the North, most of them citing nostalgia.
“There is a complex set of factors, including the longing of families left behind in the North, and the emotional and economic difficulties that arise in revitalization,” said the Unification Ministry official, who said he would look into policy and improve support for deserters.
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