Latest news with #Paju
CBS News
04-07-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
North Korean man avoids military and landmines to cross border into South Korea
A North Korean who crossed the heavily fortified land border into the South has been detained and taken into custody, Seoul's military said Friday. The North Korean, identified as a male civilian, managed to cross the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) in the midwestern part of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on Thursday, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The MDL is the de facto border, which runs through the middle of the DMZ — the border area separating the two Koreas, which is one of the most heavily mined places on earth. A South Korean soldier is seen in a watchtower at the border with North Korea, divided by the Imjin River in Paju, north of Seoul, on June 5, 2025. PEDRO PARDO/AFP via Getty Images "The military identified the individual near the MDL, conducted tracking and surveillance," the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or JCS, said in a statement. It then "successfully carried out a standard guiding operation to secure custody," it added. The operation took about 20 hours, according to Seoul, after the man was detected by a military surveillance device sometime between 3:00 and 4:00am local time Thursday. The mission to safely guide him to the South involved a considerable number of South Korean troops, the JCS said, and took place in an area difficult to navigate due to dense vegetation and landmine risks. The man stayed mostly still during the day, and South Korea's military approached him at night. He willingly followed the troops after they offered to guide him safely out of the DMZ, according to the JCS. It said "relevant authorities" will investigate the detailed circumstances of the incident. North Koreans are typically handed over to Seoul's intelligence agency for screening when they arrive in the South. History of defections The incident comes after a North Korean soldier defected to the South by crossing the MDL in August last year. Also last year, another North Korean defected to the South across the de facto border in the Yellow Sea, arriving on Gyodong island off the peninsula's west coast near the border between the Koreas. Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s, with most going overland to neighboring China first, then entering a third country such as Thailand before finally making it to the South. Defections across the land border that divides the peninsula are relatively rare. The number of successful escapes dropped significantly from 2020 after the North sealed its borders - purportedly with shoot-on-sight orders along the land frontier with China - to prevent the spread of Covid-19. No unusual activities by the North Korean military have been detected, the JCS said Friday. South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung, who took office last month, has vowed a more dovish approach towards Pyongyang compared with his hawkish predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol. "Politics and diplomacy must be handled without emotion and approached with reason and logic," Lee said Thursday. "Completely cutting off dialogue is really a foolish thing to do." This week the Justice Department revealed that North Korea, which recently opened a new coastal tourist site with room for 20,000 guests, has been using remote information technology workers employed unwittingly by U.S. companies to fund its weapons programs.
CTV News
04-07-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
North Korean crosses the heavily fortified border to South Korea
A North Korean military guard post, loudspeaker, top left, and South Korean army soldiers, bottom right, are seen from Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, on June 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) SEOUL, South Korea — An unidentified North Korean man crossed the heavily fortified land border separating the two Koreas and is in South Korean custody, the South's military said Friday. The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the military identified and tracked the individual near the central-west section of the military demarcation line Thursday night and conducted a 'guiding operation' to take the person into custody. It said authorities plan to investigate the border crossing and did not immediately say whether they view the incident as a defection attempt. The Joint Chiefs said it wasn't immediately detecting any signs of unusual military activity by the North. Border tensions have flared in recent months as the two Koreas traded Cold War-style psychological warfare, with North Korea sending thousands of trash-filled balloons toward the South and South Korea blasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda through loudspeakers. Since taking office last month, South Korea's new liberal President Lee Jae Myung has made efforts to rebuild trust with North Korea, halting the frontline loudspeaker broadcasts and moving to ban activists from flying balloons carrying propaganda leaflets across the border. In April, South Korean troops fired warning shots to repel about 10 North Korean soldiers who briefly crossed the military demarcation line. The South's military said the soldiers returned to North Korean territory without incident and that the North didn't return fire. In June last year, North Korean troops crossed the border three times, prompting South Korea to fire warning shots. Experts suggested these crossings may have been accidental, occurring as North Korean troops added anti-tank barriers, planted mines and carried out other work to bolster border defenses amid escalating tensions between the Koreas. Diplomacy between the war-divided Koreas has derailed since the collapse of denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang in 2019, which prompted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to accelerate the expansion of his military nuclear program and threaten nuclear conflict toward Washington and Seoul. South Korea's previous conservative government responded by strengthening its combined military exercises with the United States and Japan, which the North condemned as invasion rehearsals. Kim Tong-hyung, The Associated Press
CTV News
29-06-2025
- General
- CTV News
75 years after he was kidnapped to North Korea, these sisters still hope to see their brother
Visitors watch the North Korea side from the unification observatory in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Thursday, June 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) Min Young-jae has not seen or heard anything about her eldest brother for 75 years. He was 19 and she was only 2 when, during the early days of the Korean War, he was kidnapped to the North. 'We were known in the neighborhood as a happy family,' the now 77-year-old told CNN, as her older sister Min Jeong-ja nodded in agreement. Their peaceful days were shattered on June 25, 1950, when North Korea invaded the South. The three-year war would kill more than 847,000 troops and about 522,000 civilians from both sides, and tear apart more than 100,000 families, including Min's. After the war, the family kept the rusting doors of their tile-roofed house open, in hopes that their eldest would one day return. But over time, barbed wire has been installed between the two Koreas, and a modern apartment complex has replaced the house. Though 75 years have passed without a single word about or from the brother, Min and her siblings remain hopeful that they will hear about him some day. Or, if not him, then his children or grandchildren. A happy family The family lived in Dangnim village, nestled between green mountains on the western side of Chuncheon city, nearly 100 kilometers northeast of Seoul. It was a village of chirping birds, streaming water and chugging tractors. It was also dangerously close to the 38th parallel, which divided the peninsula after the Second World War. Min Young-jae, the youngest of seven, does not remember fighting with any of her siblings growing up; only sharing tofu that her parents made, splashing in the stream and being carried around on her eldest brother's shoulders. Handsome, kind and smart, Min Young-sun was studying at the Chuncheon National University of Education, following in the footsteps of his father, the principal of Dangnim Elementary School. 'His nickname was 'Math Whiz.' He excelled in math, even his classmates called him Math Whiz,' Min Jeong-ja, the fifth child of the family, said. Some days, students followed him all the way home, as he commuted via train and boat, asking him to teach math, the sisters recalled. The sisters remember Min Young-sun as a caring brother. They caught fish and splashed in the nearby stream, now widely covered with reeds and weeds and almost out of water. 'We grew up in real happiness,' Min Jeong-ja said. Torn apart Living near the frontier between the newly separated Koreas – backed by the rival ideological forces of communism or capitalism – Min's family was among the first to experience the horrors of the Korean War. When Kim Il Sung's North Korean troops invaded, Min Jeong-ja remembers seeing her grandmother running in tears, with a cow in tow, screaming: 'We're in a war!' 'We all spread out and hid in the mountains, because we were scared. One day, we hid the 4-year-old, Young-jae, in the bushes and forgot to bring her back because we had so many siblings. When we returned that night, she was still there, not even crying,' Min Jeong-ja said. While the family was running in and out of the mountains, taking shelter from the troops coming from the North, Min Young-sun was kidnapped, taken to the North by his teacher. 'The teacher gathered smart students and hauled them (away). He took several students, tens of them. Took them to the North,' Min Jeong-ja said. It is unknown why the teacher would have kidnapped the students to North Korea, but the South Korean government assumes that Pyongyang had abducted South Koreans to supplement its military. 'People called the teacher a commie,' Min Jeong-ja said. That heartache was soon followed by another: the death of the second-eldest brother. He died of shock and pain, in deep sorrow from the kidnap of his brother, according to the sisters. 'The grief was huge. Our parents lost two sons… imagine how heartbreaking that would be,' Min Jeong-ja said. For their father, the pain of losing two sons was overwhelming. He developed a panic disorder, she said, and would struggle to work for the rest of his life. 'He couldn't go outside; he stayed home all the time. And because he was hugely shocked, he struggled going through day-to-day life. So, our mom went out (to work) and suffered a lot,' Min Young-jae said. The mother jumped into earning a living for the remaining five children and her husband. Still, every morning she prayed for Min Young-sun, filling a bowl with pure water as part of a Korean folk ritual and leaving the first scoop of the family's rice serving that day in a bowl for a son whom she believed would return one day. 'She couldn't move house; in case the brother cannot find his way back home. She wouldn't let us change anything of the house, not even the doors. That's how she waited for him… We waited for so long, and time just passed,' Min Jeong-ja said. The pain continues Min Jeong-ja was 8 years old when the war started, but witnessed brutality that would overwhelm many adults. 'So many kids died. When I went out to the river to wash clothes, I occasionally saw bodies of children floating,' she recalled. She remembers witnessing North Korean soldiers lining up people in a barley field, and shooting at them with submachine guns. 'Then one by one, they fell on the barley field.' 'I saw too much. At one point – I didn't even know if the soldier was a South Korean or North Korean – but I saw beheaded remains.' The Min family is one of many torn apart by the war. More than 134,000 people are still waiting to hear from their loved ones believed to be in North Korea, which is now one of the world's most reclusive states, with travel between the two countries nigh-on impossible. Years after the Korean War, the two Koreas discussed organizing reunions for the separated families that have been identified from both sides through the Red Cross and both governments. The first reunion happened in 1985, more than 30 years after the ceasefire agreement was signed, and the annual reunions kicked off in 2000, when many first-hand war victims were still alive, but occasionally halted when tensions escalated on the peninsula. Once the two governments agree on a reunion date, one of the two Koreas selects families, prioritizing the elderly and immediate relatives, then shares the list with the other, which would cross check the family on its side to confirm the list of around 100 members. The selected families would meet at an office specifically built for reunions at the Mount Kumgang resort in North Korea. The Min siblings applied to the Red Cross at least five times and listed themselves under the South Korean government as a separated family. But there was never any word on their brother's whereabouts from the other side. As 75 years passed, the siblings grew up, got married, and formed their own families – but questions about their stolen brother linger. Even worse, the annual reunions of separated families have been halted since 2018, following failed summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, while first-hand victims of the war age and pass away. The Kumgang resort was dismantled by the North in 2022, also amid strained tensions. But the siblings, following their parents' wishes, still hope to connect with Min Young-sun, who would now be 94 years old. 'My brother Young-sun, it's already been 75 years,' Min Young-jae said into a CNN camera, taking her glasses off so that he would recognize his sister's face. 'It's been a long time since we were separated, but I would be so grateful if you're alive. And if you're not, I still would love to meet your children. I want to share the love of family, remembering the happy days of the past… I love you, thank you.' She and the siblings remember the kidnapped brother by singing his favorite song, 'Thinking of My Brother,' a children's song about a brother that never returned. 'My brother, you said you would come back from Seoul with silk shoes,' Min Young-jae sang, while her sister wiped away tears.
The Standard
20-06-2025
- General
- The Standard
Rights abuses continue in North Korea a decade after probe, says UN investigator
A North Korean flag flutters on top of a 160-metre tower in North Korea's propaganda village of Gijungdong in this picture taken from the Dora observatory near the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, in Paju, South Korea, April 24, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File Photo
Russia Today
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
North Korea stopped border loudspeaker broadcasts
North Korea appears to have stopped its border broadcasts as of Thursday morning, South Korea's military has said, a day after Seoul suspended its own loudspeaker campaign targeting its neighbor. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who took office this week, ordered the military to suspend loudspeaker broadcasts on Wednesday in a move aimed at easing tensions and reopening dialogue with Pyongyang. 'There was no region where North Korea's noise broadcasts to the South were heard today,' according to a South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Col. Lee Sung-Jun. He added that while the broadcasts had still been audible until around 11 pm the night before, 'so far, there is no region where the noise broadcast has been heard.' There hasn't been an official confirmation from North Korea. A local official told NK News that North Korean broadcasts changed from disruptive noise to calm songs on Wednesday night before stopping altogether by Thursday morning. 'We're not sure what genre the music was. Residents said it was calm and soothing.' Today, there's no noise at all,' the official told the media. Two cafes in Paju, a South Korean city near the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, told NK News they heard no broadcasts from the North that morning. Seoul had resumed its own loudspeaker campaign in July 2024 after North Korea launched trash-filled balloons into the South. The move came during a period of heightened tension, sparked in part by North Korean anger over leaflets sent by defectors in the South. Relations between the two countries deteriorated sharply under former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached in December. Lee Jae-myung, who won a snap election last week, pledged to end provocative measures such as loudspeaker broadcasts and leaflet campaigns, and to reengage diplomatically with the North. North Korea has long opposed joint military drills between South Korea and the United States, citing them as a threat. The two Koreas remain technically at war, as the 1953 armistice never led to a peace treaty.
