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A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea across the rivals’ heavily fortified border on Sunday, South Korea’s military said.
The military took custody of the soldier who crossed the central portion of the land border, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. It said the soldier expressed a desire to resettle in South Korea.
It was the first reported defection by a North Korean soldier since a North Korean staff sergeant fled to South Korea via the border’s eastern section in August 2024.
So all 155 miles of the border is walled and patrolled? I know there’s a heavily trapped DMZ, 2.5 miles wide, but for all 155 miles? How does that work?
I obviously have zero experience, but I would think a healthy, well equipped person could easily find a hole.
It isn’t the first time someone built a heavily trapped, walled and patrolled border of that size.
Take a look at the Inner German Border. It was over 1300 km (approx. 810 mi) long, and was (average) about 5.5 km wide (a bit more than 3 miles).
From 1974 to 1979, 4956 people attempted to cross it, and only 229 (4.6%) actually made it.
And the other parts of the iron wall weren’t that much better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Czechoslovak_borders_during_the_Cold_War
Geography limits your options of where to cross.
Survival equipment is difficult to obtain or learn usage of discretely.
It isn’t like they can just buy camping gear and walk the length of the dmz during vacation to find a weak point.
So not your average North Korean, then.