North Korean Soldier Crosses DMZ to Defect

It's the first reported soldier defection in more than a year
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Oct 20, 2025 11:33 AM CDT
North Korean Soldier Crosses DMZ to Defect
A soldier stands at a North Korean military guard post flying a national flag, seen from Paju, South Korea, June 26, 2024.   (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea across the rivals' heavily fortified border on Sunday, South Korea's military said. The military took the custody of the soldier who crossed the central portion of the land border, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, per the AP. It said the soldier expressed a desire to resettle in South Korea. It was the first reported defection by a North Korean soldier since a North Korean staff sergeant fled to South Korea via the border's eastern section in August 2024. Despite the two border crossings, it isn't common for North Koreans to defect via the land border. Unlike its official name, the Demilitarized Zone, the 155-mile-long, 2.5-mile-wide border is guarded by land mines, tank traps, barbed wire fences, and combat troops.

In 2017, when a fleeing North Korean soldier sprinted across the border, North Korean soldiers fired about 40 rounds before South Korean soldiers could drag the wounded soldier to safety. A vast majority of about 34,000 North Koreans who have fled to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War came via China, which shares a long, porous border with North Korea. Relations between the two Koreas remain strained, with North Korea repeatedly rejecting outreach by South Korea's liberal President Lee Jae Myung, who took office in June with a vow to restore reconciliation between the rivals.

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