A North Korean defector to the South was apprehended after he crashed a stolen bus near the border in a failed bid to return to his isolated homeland, police told AFP on Wednesday.

The suspect had fled to the South in 2011, and was attempting to re-enter the North aboard the stolen bus when he crashed into a barricade on a bridge just south of the heavily fortified demilitarised zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas, according to Gyeonggi Bukbu provincial police.

“He lives under difficult economic conditions as a construction worker and misses his family still in the North,” an investigator told AFP, explaining the man’s reasons for the attempted crossing.

The police are considering charging the suspect, who is in his 30s, with theft and violating national security laws, the investigator added.

Crossings from the South to the North are rare, with defectors typically heading in the opposite direction, often via China after crossing the Yalu River, which separates it from North Korea.

More than 34,000 North Koreans have defected to the South since the 1950-53 Korean War, though it is not unheard of for some to try returning to the isolated country.

A former North Korean defector who had been working as a janitor made his way back to the North by crossing the eastern DMZ in January 2022.

Between 2012 and 2021, 31 defectors returned to the North, according to the Unification Ministry in Seoul.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with Pyongyang ramping up weapons tests and bombarding the South with balloons carrying rubbish, and Seoul suspending a military deal and resuming propaganda broadcasts in response.