A South Korean fisheries official who went missing this week on a North Korean patrol boat was questioned before being killed by soldiers who then dumped his body in oil and set it on fire, according to Seoul.
the main points:
- The name of the South Korean official who was shot by North Korean forces has reportedly not been disclosed
- The South Korean army said it appeared to have been executed on “order from a higher authority.”
- The military demanded that North Korea “provide explanations and punish those responsible.”
The South Korean military said evidence indicated the man was trying to flee to the North when he was reported missing from a fishing boat on Monday (local time).
The incident reportedly occurred about 10 kilometers south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a contested demarcation of military control that serves as the de facto maritime boundary between North and South Korea.
The South Korean military said the exact reason for shooting the 47-year-old is unknown, but North Korean forces may have been acting under anti-coronavirus orders.
Citing intelligence sources, the military said that the unidentified man was apparently interrogated on a North Korean boat before being executed “by order of a higher authority.”
The South Korean military said that the forces wearing gas masks then doused the body in oil and set it on fire.
“Our military strongly condemns such atrocities and strongly demands that North Korea provide explanations and punish those responsible,” General Ahn Young, who is in charge of operations at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a press briefing.
The US military commander in South Korea said this month that North Korean forces had received “shoot to kill orders” to prevent the coronavirus from entering the country.
In July, a man who fled to South Korea three years ago sparked a panic of the Corona virus when he crossed again across the tightly controlled border into North Korea, which says it has not recorded any cases of the disease.
His arrival prompted North Korean officials to close a border city and put thousands of people in quarantine due to fears of contracting the Coronavirus, although the World Health Organization later said that the results of his tests were inconclusive.
Last week, South Korean police arrested a defector they said had tried to return to North Korea by storming a military training site in the border town of Chorwon in South Korea.
Reuters
