A North Korean soldier has defected across the DMZ
A North Korean soldier on Saturday defected to South Korea, crossing a fortified area of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) before he was found by South Korean troops.
The South Korean military plans to question the soldier as to how and why he chose to defect. This development could hinder recent progress in inter-Korean relations, where negotiators have sought to calm military hostility.
Escapes across the DMZ are rare because it is so heavily guarded and armed. Most of the estimated 32,000 North Koreans who have defected have done so by crossing the northern border into China.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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