SEOUL: A wooden boat carrying four North Koreans drifted into waters south of the de facto maritime border with the South last month, Seoul’s military said on Thursday.
They were discovered in the East Sea — known internationally as the Sea of Japan — in waters around 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of South Korea’s Gangwon province, it said.
The South Korean military “detected a small North Korean wooden boat in waters… east of Goseong in Gangwon Province”, an official said.
The four North Koreans have been sent to a “relevant institution” after being identified by the military and the Coast Guard, he said.
North Koreans are typically handed over to Seoul’s intelligence agency for screening when they arrive in the South.
All four North Koreans have expressed their wish to return home, according to Seoul’s Yonhap news agency, which said it was believed they crossed the de facto border accidentally.
Seoul’s unification ministry, which manages relations with Pyongyang, said “we will pursue their prompt and safe repatriation on humanitarian grounds” if they wanted to return to North Korea.
South Korea’s military also found another wooden boat carrying two North Koreans in the western Yellow Sea in early March.
However, those two Koreans — who also expressed their will to return to the North — are still in the South because Pyongyang is yet to respond to Seoul’s communications regarding the issue.
A North Korean defected to the South across the same de facto border in the Yellow Sea last year, arriving “on foot” on Gyodong island off the peninsula’s west coast near the border between the Koreas.
South Korea’s President Lee Jae-myung, who took office on Wednesday, has vowed a more dovish approach towards Pyongyang compared with his hawkish predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol.
Lee said on Wednesday he would seek talks with the North following a deep freeze under Yoon, under whose tenure relations plummeted to their worst level in years.
