South Korean authorities revealed on Thursday that a North Korean man managed to swim across the border separating the two countries, using tape-on plastic foam for buoyancy. The unidentified man swam for 10 hours, at which point he was detected by South Korea’s military more than a mile south of North Korean soil. He began his journey in an estuary separating the two Koreas, the same route that another defector from the North used last year. The two adversarial nations share the most heavily militarized border in the world, with a 2.5-mile-wide demilitarized zone (DMZ) that was established according to the terms of the Korean War armistice. The DMZ has been a persistent source of conflict between the authoritarian regime of Kim Jong Un and the democratic government of the South. Until recently, when new President Lee Jae Myung ended the practice, South Korea used loudspeakers at the DMZ to blare K-pop music and anti-regime news over the border. Meanwhile, the North Korean dictator has prioritized preventing defections across the DMZ, instructing soldiers to shoot would-be defectors on sight. As a result, successful defections have dwindled since 2020.
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