South Korea on Wednesday returned six North Koreans who had earlier floated across the sea border in wooden boats in a rare gesture of cross-border coordination with the North despite tense ties and futile communication efforts with Pyongyang.
The team who arrived in the South following individual incidents in March and May had repeatedly stated their intention to go back home, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said. Seoul tried to arrange for them to return through diplomatic channels, but North Korea did not react to a series of messages delivered through the US-led United Nations Command.
Still, the six were returned at the handover point in the Yellow Sea by a North Korean patrol boat, with them returning aboard one of the wooden boats they had originally traveled in, which had been repaired.
Incidents such as these were commonplace in earlier years, usually requiring coordination through the Koreas currently inactive communication hotlines. North Koreans traveling south in a stray manner is not new, whether by mistake or in attempted flight. Return were traditionally conducted over the ground border after bilateral talks.
Meanwhile, South Korea is also separately tracking a North Korean male who defected across the highly fortified land border last Friday. It is not known if he will defect or go back.
Inter-Korean relations have sharply worsened since 2019 after the breakdown of US-North Korea nuclear negotiations. Pyongyang has since severed almost all lines of communication with Seoul and increased weapons testing. North Korea has also assisted Russia in the Ukraine war with weapons shipments, adding to its further isolation.
Tensions have been mounting in recent times, with North Korea sending rubbish-filled balloons over the border and South Korea restarting propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts. New South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has moved to defuse tensions, however, by stopping broadcasts and trying to limit anti-North leafleting, indicating a possible change of tack in Seoul towards Pyongyang.
