A South Korean soldier is seen in a watchtower at the border with North Korea, divided by the Imjin River in Paju, north of Seoul, on June 5, 2025. PEDRO PARDO/AFP via Getty Images

A North Korean who crossed the heavily fortified land border into the South has been detained and taken into custody, Seoul's military said Friday.

The North Korean, identified as a male civilian, managed to cross the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) in the midwestern part of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on Thursday, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

The MDL is the de facto border, which runs through the middle of the DMZ — the border area separating the two Koreas, which is one of the most heavily mined places on earth.

"The military identified the individual near the MDL, conducted tracking and surveillance," the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or JCS, said in a statement.

It then "successfully carried out a standard guiding operation to secure custody," it added.

The operation took about 20 hours, according to Seoul, after the man was detected by a military surveillance device sometime between 3:00 and 4:00am local time Thursday.

The mission to safely guide him to the South involved a considerable number of South Korean troops, the JCS said, and took place in an area difficult to navigate due to dense vegetation and landmine risks.

The man stayed mostly still during the day, and South Korea's military approached him at night.

He willingly followed the troops after they offered to guide him safely out of the DMZ, according to the JCS.

It said "relevant authorities" will investigate the detailed circumstances of the incident.

North Koreans are typically handed over to Seoul's intelligence agency for screening when they arrive in the South.

History of defections
The incident comes after a North Korean soldier defected to the South by crossing the MDL in August last year.

Also last year, another North Korean defected to the South across the de facto border in the Yellow Sea, arriving on Gyodong island off the peninsula's west coast near the border between the Koreas.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s, with most going overland to neighboring China first, then entering a third country such as Thailand before finally making it to the South.

Defections across the land border that divides the peninsula are relatively rare.

The number of successful escapes dropped significantly from 2020 after the North sealed its borders - purportedly with shoot-on-sight orders along the land frontier with China - to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

No unusual activities by the North Korean military have been detected, the JCS said Friday.

South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung, who took office last month, has vowed a more dovish approach towards Pyongyang compared with his hawkish predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol.

"Politics and diplomacy must be handled without emotion and approached with reason and logic," Lee said Thursday.

"Completely cutting off dialogue is really a foolish thing to do."

This week the Justice Department revealed that North Korea, which recently opened a new coastal tourist site with room for 20,000 guests, has been using remote information technology workers employed unwittingly by U.S. companies to fund its weapons programs.

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