SEOUL: A North Korean soldier escaped to the South on Thursday across the heavily-guarded Demilita­rised Zone that divides the peninsula, triggering gunfire on both sides of the tense border, in the second defection in successive months.

The “low-ranking” soldier was spotted by South Korean soldiers using surveillance equipment as he crossed the midwestern part of the land border in thick fog and made his way to a guard post, a spokesman for Seoul’s defence ministry said.

There were no shots at the time, he said, but about 90 minutes later South Korean troops fired around 20 rounds from a K-3 machine gun to warn off Northern guards who approached the border apparently looking for their comrade.

Two bursts of gunfire were later heard in the North, the spokesman said, but there were no indications of any bullets crossing the border.

The incident came a month after a rare and dramatic defection by a Northern soldier under a hail of bullets from his own side at Panmunjom, the truce village where opposing forces confront each other across a concrete dividing line.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2017