South Korea says North Korea killed its citizen, strongly condemns action

A South Korean government employee who went missing near a heavily patrolled nautical border was fatally shot by North Korean military personnel, the first such killing of a civilian in about a decade.

The 47-year-old man who worked for South Korea’s fisheries ministry went missing Monday from his boat near Yeonpyeong Island, some 10 kilometers (6 miles) south of the nautical border known as Northern Limit Line. He was shot and his body cremated, South Korean Defense Ministry said Thursday.

The ministry in a statement said it “strongly condemns” North Korea’s “brutal action,” demanding an explanation for what happened and punishment of those responsible. Seoul also “sternly warns” that North Korea is fully responsible for its brutal action against the South Korean citizen, it added.

The man may have been trying to defect, Yonhap News Agency reported, citing a South Korean military official. North Korea military personnel questioned the missing employee about a day after he went missing on a patrol boat before shooting him. North Koreans doused the body with oil and set it ablaze, it said, citing a South Korean military official.

The ministry had spotted signs that the missing person was in North Korean territory, the statement added. The incident occurred just weeks after the commander of US Forces Korea, Robert Abrams, said North Korea imposed “shoot-to-kill orders” on its border.

The incident helped push down stocks in Seoul, with the benchmark Kospi falling 2.27 per cent as of 11:59 a.m.

The shooting likely took place around the same time South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged world leaders at a speech to the United Nations General Assembly to bring the 70-year-old Korean War to a formal end, in his latest attempt to resuscitate stalled nuclear talks between US President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.

Moon’s rapprochement with North Korea was tested in June when Pyongyang blew up a $15 million liaison office South Korea built two years ago to serve as a de facto embassy for the countries, who have no formal diplomatic ties.

Moon’s government issued a sternly worded warning but didn’t seek any punishment against Kim. After the incident, Moon replaced several members of his security team, putting in place officials known for backing accommodative policies toward Pyongyang. His government also made a fresh push to revive economic projects that were frozen due to political rancor.

Yeonpyeong, near where the shooting took place, suffered the first attack on South Korean soil since the end of the Korean War in November 2010. North Korea shelled targets for more than an hour, killing two civilians and two marines. The flurry damaged almost 300 structures and set wooded areas ablaze.

The incident marked a nadir in ties stemming from a series of incident that began in 2008 when North Korea fatally shot a 53-year-old South Korean woman vacationer who wandered close to a military facility at a resort at North Korea’s Mount Kumgang. South Koreans were then ordered to vacate the facility that was supposed to serve as a place where people from the two Koreas could meet.

In March 2010 North Korea was suspected of torpedoing the South Korean warship Cheonan, killing 46 sailors in waters near the Northern Limit Line.