South Korea Asks North Korea To Apologize For 'shooting Dead Official'

`The shooting of our citizen, who was unarmed and had no intention of resisting, and harming his body cannot be justified for any reason. North Korea needs to apologize and take action.`

South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense previously said that the 47-year-old official from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries went missing from the 499-ton ship on the afternoon of September 21 while on inspection duty off the coast of Yeonpyeong Island.

`North Korea discovered this person in their waters and shot him, then burned his body, according to our military’s thorough analysis of multiple intelligence sources,` the Defense Ministry said.

North Korea has not yet commented on information from the South Korean side.

South Korean speedboats patrolled off Yeonpyeong Island near North Korea in July. Photo: Yonhap.

This is the first time a South Korean citizen has been shot dead in North Korea since July 2008, after Park Wang-ja was shot dead at North Korea’s Mount Kumgang resort while wandering in a restricted area.

The incident is expected to continue to worsen inter-Korean relations, which were already severely fractured after North Korea objected to leaflets from South Korea and demolished the inter-Korean liaison office building in June.

According to a South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JSC) official, the missing official is believed to have jumped into the sea in a suspected attempt to defect to North Korea and drifted into North Korean waters.

When this person was discovered at sea at around 3:30 p.m. on September 22, sailors of a North Korean ship wore gas masks and questioned him from afar.

During questioning, the South Korean official appeared to express a desire to defect to North Korea, according to a JCS official.

This official’s colleagues at the West Sea Fisheries Management Bureau, an agency under the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, said he was having financial problems.

South Korean officials believe that North Korea shooting officials may be part of anti-Covid-19 instructions.

North Korea has made every effort to prevent the Covid-19 pandemic, although Pyongyang claims to have not recorded any cases.

Earlier this month, Commander of US Forces Korea (USFK), General Robert Abrams, said North Korea had deployed special operations forces near the border with China and ordered those who crossed the border to be shot.

While defections on the Korean peninsula are mainly North Koreans going to South Korea, this year has seen a number of border crossings to North Korea that have attracted a lot of attention.

A man who defected to South Korea three years ago crossed the border to return to North Korea in July, causing Pyongyang to worry that he brought nCoV into the country.

Last week, South Korean police arrested a defector who tried to return to North Korea by breaking into a military training site in the South Korean border town of Cheorwon.