US soldier Travis King has defected to North Korea. Photo / Supplied
US soldier Travis King has defected to North Korea. Photo / Supplied
A US soldier who defected to North Korea in a daring move was allegedly “breaking down” over a family tragedy and was awaiting disciplinary action for alleged assaults while in the army, a relative has revealed.
Travis King, a private 2nd class, was reportedly spotted in civilian clothing at a tour of the Joint Security Area in South Korea - the border village in the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas that is guarded by soldiers from both sides.
Is it there that the 23-year-old made a daring dash for North Korea in front of stunned onlookers.
“It took everybody a second to react and grasp what had actually happened, then we were ordered into and through Freedom House [a South Korean administrative building in the JSA] and running back to our military bus,” a Swedish visitor who was on King’s tour wrote of the moment he purportedly ran across the border while loudly laughing “ha-ha-ha”.
“I thought it was a bad joke at first, but when he didn’t come back, I realised it wasn’t a joke, and then everybody reacted and things got crazy,” another witness said.
King had previously spent two months at a South Korean detention centre, and was awaiting a return home. He was escorted as far as the customs checkpoint at Incheon International Airport and was due to fly home to Fort Bliss army post in Texas.
However, he evaded his handlers and slipped security.
Now his uncle Carl Gates has revealed more about King’s background and struggles - hinting it as a possible reason for his wild defection to the hermit nation.
Gates said King began struggling emotionally after his nephew, Gates’ son King’Nazir, had died.
As King’Nazir grappled with SPTLC 2, a genetic condition so rare that it does not have an official name, King was overseas and felt guilty for not being able to be there, according to Gates.
US soldier Travis King has defected to North Korea. Photo / Supplied
“When my son was on life support, and when my son passed away … Travis started [being] reckless [and] crazy when he knew my son was about to die,” Gates told news website the Daily Beast.
King’Nazir died in February.
“His mum came down on a few occasions, and she then talked to him and let him know what was going on with my son. And it seemed like he was breaking down. It affected Travis a lot,” he recalled.
“Because he couldn’t be here. He was in the Army, overseas. I know it’s related to what he did. The pain came from my son, and it escalated to this s***.
“I think right now he might have a problem or something. I can’t see him doing that intentionally if he was in his right mind,”
Prior to his defection, King was convicted and fined approximately US$3950 ($6312) for assaulting an unidentified person and damaging a police vehicle in Seoul last October, according to AP.
The UN Command said they believe he is in North Korean custody.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the US government was working with its North Korean counterparts to “resolve this incident”.
It wasn’t known whether or how the US and North Korea would communicate. The two countries have no diplomatic relations and are still officially at war because the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
In the past, Sweden, which has an embassy in Pyongyang, provided consular services for other Americans detained in North Korea. But Swedish diplomatic staff reportedly haven’t returned to North Korea since the country imposed a Covid-19 lockdown in early 2020 and ordered all foreigners to leave.
It’s rare for Americans or South Koreans to defect to North Korea, but more than 30,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea to escape political oppression and economic difficulties since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
King’s mother, Claudine Gates, previously told ABC that she just wants her son “to come home”.
