SEOUL, South Korea (AP) Six South Koreans recently repatriated from North Korea had sneaked into the North in search of better lives but ended up detained for up to 45 months for illegal entry, Seoul officials said Monday.
South Koreans defecting to impoverished, totalitarian North Korea are rare. In contrast, more than 25,000 North Koreans have fled to the South for political and economic reasons since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. The two Koreas bar ordinary citizens from freely traveling across their mutual border, and in September South Korean soldiers fatally shot one of their citizens they thought was trying to enter North Korea.
North Korea sent back the six men and a woman's corpse on Friday in an unusual action seen as an attempt to improve strained ties between the rival countries after the North's abrupt cancellations last month of reunions of families separated by the war. Tensions spiked dramatically this past spring over North Korea's repeated threats of nuclear war.
A South Korean security official said Monday that the men told investigators they entered North Korea between 2009 and 2012 by walking over frozen rivers from China, or swimming after jumping off a Chinese cruise ship on a border river.
The men had vague hopes that they could have better lives in North Korea after suffering business failures and family troubles, or engaging in pro-North Korea activities in South Korea, said the official, who requested anonymity because an investigation is still under way.
