South Korea intercepts boat carrying suspected North Korean defectors

SEOUL, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- A small boat carrying North Koreans believed to be defecting was picked up by South Korean authorities Tuesday morning in waters near the sea border between the countries, Seoul's military said.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the South Korean military recovered the boat in the East Sea off the port city of Sokcho after detecting "unusual signs" near the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border.

The military had been tracking a small wooden boat coming from the North with coastal surveillance equipment including radar and thermal imaging devices and secured the vessel in cooperation with the coast guard, the JCS said.

A South Korean fishing vessel had spotted the boat and called in a report to the coast guard, the JCS added.

At a press conference, Joint Chiefs spokesman Lee Sung Joon confirmed local media reports that the North Korean boat was spotted by the fishing vessel roughly 6 miles off the coast at 7:10 a.m. Lee said authorities were currently conducting an investigation into the incident.

The military did not specify how many individuals were on the boat, but news agency Yonhap, citing a government source, reported that there were four North Koreans on board, all of whom expressed a desire to defect.

If confirmed, their defection marks the second time this year a group of North Koreans has made an escape at sea, with nine people on a fishing boat crossing the western sea border in May. Direct defections across the border with the South have been historically rare, with most escapees making crossings overland via the border with China.

Almost 34,000 North Koreans have defected to the South, but the number of arrivals has plummeted after Pyongyang sealed its borders in January 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2019, more than 1,000 escapees made their way to South Korea but that number fell to 229 in 2020 and just 67 last year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Unification.

There has been an uptick so far this year, with an estimated 99 arrivals through the first six months of 2023, amid widespread reports of severe food shortages and ongoing political oppression.

In 2019, South Korea sent back two North Korean fishermen who were believed to have killed 16 fellow crew members on their vessel, sparking a backlash by political opponents of the administration of then-President Moon Jae-in and an outcry from human rights groups.

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch said that China had recently repatriated more than 500 North Korean escapees it was detaining, highlighting a concern for their safety that has been growing since Pyongyang signaled in August that it would begin reopening its borders.

South Korea's Unification Ministry later confirmed that a "large number" of North Koreans had been sent back from China and said it had called on Beijing to protect the escapees as asylum seekers.

China, however, has long treated North Koreans crossing the border as illegal migrants and has not given them refugee protection.