Key Points
- A US soldier has fled across the inter-Korean border into North Korea and is believed to be in North Korean custody.
- Two officials said the soldier had been due to face disciplinary action by the US military.
- He had previously served around two months in a South Korean prison on assault charges.
A US soldier facing disciplinary action has fled across the inter-Korean border into North Korea and is believed to be in North Korean custody, US officials say.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed concern for the soldier, who the US military in South Korea said was on an orientation tour of Joint Security Area between the Koreas and "wilfully and without authorisation crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)".
"There's a lot that we're still trying to learn," Austin told a news briefing.
"We believe that he is in (North Korean) custody and so we're closely monitoring and investigating the situation and working to notify the soldier's next of kin."
Colonel Isaac Taylor, spokesman for US Forces Korea, said the military was "working with our KPA counterparts to resolve this incident," referring to North Korea's People's Army.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the identity of the soldier but two US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had been due to face disciplinary action by the US military.
South Korea's Dong-a Ilbo daily, citing South Korea's army, identified the person as Travis King, a US army soldier with the rank of private second class. The newspaper later deleted the name.
The soldier had previously served about two months in a South Korean jail, a Seoul official told AFP on Wednesday. He "was released on July 10th after serving around two months in a South Korean prison on assault charges," the official said.
CBS News said the soldier was being escorted back to the United States for disciplinary reasons, but after going through airport security somehow returned and managed to join the border tour.
It said a person who said they witnessed the event and was part of the same tour group told CBS News they had just visited one of the buildings at the site when "this man gives out a loud 'ha ha ha' and just runs in between some buildings".
CBS cited the witness as saying that military personnel reacted within seconds to the man's actions but initially there was confusion.
"I thought it was a bad joke at first but when he didn't come back, I realised it wasn't a joke, and then everybody reacted and things got crazy," it quoted the witness as saying.
According to CBS, the witness said there were no North Korean soldiers visible where the man ran, and that the group has been told there had not been since the coronavirus pandemic when North Korea sought to seal its borders.
American student Otto Frederick Warmbier, centre, arrives at a court for his trial in the North Korean capital Pyongyang on 16 March 2015. Source: Getty / Xinhua News Agency
North Korea has been testing increasingly powerful missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, including a new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile launched last week.
Colonel Isaac Taylor, spokesman for the US military in South Korea and the UN Command, declined to confirm whether the individual was a US army soldier.
"We're still doing some research into this, and everything that happened," he told Reuters.
The incident happened during a tour to the Joint Security Area on the demilitarised zone border that has separated the two Koreas since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
The man was with a group of visitors, including civilians, to the Panmunjom truce village when he suddenly bolted over the brick line marking the border, Donga and the Chosun Ilbo daily newspapers reported, citing South Korean army sources.
The US State Department tells US citizens not to enter North Korea "due to the continuing serious risk of arrest and long term detention of US nationals".
The ban was implemented after US college student Otto Warmbier was detained by North Korean authorities while on a tour of the country in 2015.
He died in 2017, days after he was released from North Korea and returned to the United States in a coma.
- With AFP
