Unarmed North Korean man enters South Korea and is currently being held in custody

South Korean troops arrest an unarmed North Korean man who crossed the border in a rare act of military defiance as tensions between the two Koreas rise.

The military of South Korea said Friday that a man from North Korea who has not been named has been arrested after crossing the highly guarded border between the two Koreas.

The man was seen near the central-west part of the military dividing line on Thursday night, according to the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. After proving they were South Korean troops, a military unit did a “guiding operation” and got him out of the mine-filled Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) safely.

It was said that the North Korean was not armed when he was arrested.

The crossing may have been an attempt to flee, but the police haven’t decided yet because the case is still being looked into.

In addition, the Joint Chiefs said that the US-led United Nations Command had been told about the situation and that there were no immediate signs that North Korean troops were doing anything out of the ordinary in the area.

Recently, tensions between North and South Korea have grown, and there has been psychological warfare similar to what happened in the Cold War. North Korea sent waves of trash-filled balloons into the South, and South Korea reacted by playing anti-North propaganda over loudspeakers alongside the border.

The new liberal president of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, has been trying to ease tensions since he took office last month. The loudspeaker blasts stopped, and his government started to take steps to stop activist groups from sending propaganda leaflets across the border.

Border problems are still a touchy subject. In April, South Korean troops fired warning shots at about ten North Korean forces who crossed the line for a short time. This made them stop. In June of last year, North Korean troops crossed the border three times while allegedly adding mines and anti-tank barriers to their side.

Since the 2019 failure of US-North Korea peace talks, diplomatic ties between the two Koreas have gotten worse. As a result, Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, increased his military nuclear program and made direct nuclear threats against Washington and Seoul. South Korea’s old conservative government reacted by stepping up military cooperation with the US and Japan, which Pyongyang saw as getting ready to invade.

More and more people are worried about the safety of the DMZ, which is one of the most militarized areas in the world, after the latest border break.