A North Korean soldier has defected to South Korea, crossing on the western side of the border dividing the two countries, with warning shots fired at North Korean border guards, the Defence Ministry in Seoul says.
The low-ranking North Korean soldier appeared in front of a South Korean border guard post in the fog, a spokesman of the South Korean Ministry of Defense confirmed to EFE.
He crossed to the South at a point of the "western slope" of the DMZ, the border that divides the two countries which have technically been at war since the 1950s.
Around 20 shots were fired when the border guards approached the military demarcation line.
The guards were apparently searching for the soldier who defected, according to the news agency Yonhap, which reported that shots had also been fired by the North, though none had crossed the demarcation line.
This is the fourth North Korean soldier to defect to the South this year and the first one following the dramatic desertion of a soldier who was shot five times by the North Korean army in mid-November during his flight through the Joint Security Area, the only border area where soldiers of the two Koreas are stationed face to face.
However, in this case the South Korean troops have detected "no unusual movements" of the North Korean Army, according to the Ministry of Defence's spokesman.
On the other hand, in a statement issued separately, the South Korean Ministry of Unification announced that two other North Koreans, in this case civilians, defected to the South on Wednesday by boat.
After the vessel was detected by a Navy patrol in the Sea of Japan (called "East Sea" in the both Koreas), its two crew members expressed their desire to defect.
