The United Nations Command has released dramatic video of a North Korean military defector's escape to South Korea last week. The defector, whose name has not been released, can be seen racing toward the border in a car before crashing and fleeing on foot. North Korean soldiers opened fire on the defector — he was shot at least five times, The Guardian reports — and South Korean forces managed to crawl to where he was wounded and drag him to safety.
"The reason that he defected, risking death and facing a barrage of gunshots, was because he had positive hopes about South Korea," said the soldier's lead surgeon, Lee Cook-jong, adding: "He is fine. He is not going to die."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Scorching hot sauces that pack a punchThe Week Recommends The best sauces to tingle your lips and add a fiery kick to your food
-
Syria’s strange post-Assad electionThe Explainer Sunday’s limited vote ‘suited the phase Syria is undergoing’, says interim president
-
Why did the China spying case collapse?Today’s Big Question Unwillingness to call China an ‘enemy’ apparently scuppered espionage trial
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talkSpeed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
-
Shakespeare not an absent spouse, study proposesspeed read A letter fragment suggests that the Shakespeares lived together all along, says scholar Matthew Steggle
