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Ahn Young-ho, head of operations at the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, announces the death of a Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries official, who went missing earlier this week in waters near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), at the Ministry of the National Defense on Sept. 24. (Yonhap News)

There are several shocking aspects of a recent incident in which an official from South Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF) disappeared near Yeonpyeong Island, on the Yellow Sea and attempted to defect to North Korea, only to be shot dead in the water by North Korean soldiers. For one thing, North Korea violated humanitarian principles by shooting an unarmed civilian and burning his body, notwithstanding the critical need for the North to block the spread of COVID-19. On top of that, the South Korean government and military authorities are facing criticism for their handling of the incident, including their belated disclosure of the facts.

According to statements provided by the Blue House and the South Korean military on Sept. 24, the disappearance of the 47-year-old official with MOF’s West Sea Fisheries Management Service, came to the attention of his shipmates around 11:30 am on Sept. 21. Twenty ships from the coast guard, the navy, and MOF and two aircraft from the coast guard were mobilized for a search and rescue operation; the search began at earnest around the coastline of Greater Yeonpyeong Island at 6 pm of the same day.

It was around 3:30 pm on Sept. 22, the day after the official went missing, that the South Korean military obtained evidence that an individual, presumed to be the official, was in North Korean waters. At that point, the individual was about 38km away from where he disappeared.

“We acquired evidence that a North Korean fishing vessel was the first to discover the exhausted missing individual, wearing a life preserver and riding a flotation device capable of holding one person, in the waters near Deungsan Cape,” said a source with the military. It’s unclear how the official made it all the way to Deungsan Cape, and no details have been confirmed about the flotation device. But the military said that the official, given his long experience overseeing the fisheries, would have had expert knowledge of the local currents.

Given the fact that the official was wearing a life jacket and left his shoes behind on the inspection vessel and that he brought along a small flotation device, the military is leaning toward the possibility that he intended to defect to North Korea. This circumstantial evidence makes it unlikely that the official simply fell off the deck of the ship by accident. Crucially, the military appears to have received intelligence that the official told the North Koreans who found him that he wanted to defect.

“Around 4:40 pm on Sept. 22, North Koreans wearing gas masks and keeping their distance from the missing individual asked why he was in the water and apparently heard him say he intended to defect,” a South Korean military spokesperson said on Thursday. But the spokesperson added that the presumption that the missing man intended to defect is “solely based on circumstantial evidence” and noted that “I think we’ll have to wait for the results of the investigation.”

While maintaining its distance from the South Korean official, the North Korean vessel reportedly took measures to prevent the official from drifting away. “The North Korean soldiers on the patrol boat appear to have shot the missing individual on orders from their superiors. We have evidence that North Korean soldiers in gas masks and protective gear approached the body and set it on fire,” the military spokesperson said.

The shooting took place at 9:40 pm, and North Korean soldiers in protective gear poured oil on the corpse and set it on fire around 10 pm. It apparently took about five hours for those orders to be received from their superior officers. Unusual activity was also detected around this time by surveillance equipment at a South Korean base on Yeonpyeong Island. The military explained that the glow from the burning body was detected around 10:11 pm. “Our understanding is that, as part of its disease control measures along the border, North Korea has given unconditional orders for any unauthorized individuals to be shot on sight, in violation of humanitarian principles,” the military spokesperson said.

It’s also possible that the official’s burned corpse is still afloat. South Korean Minister of National Defense Suh Wook told the National Assembly’s defense committee on Sept. 24 that the body was probably still in those waters, after Ha Tae-keung, a lawmaker with the People Power Party, asked about its location.

Suh confirmed for Ha that North Korea had burned the official’s body and left it in the water. Responding to a further question, Suh said some parts of the burned corpse were still floating in the water. When Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Byung-joo said that all efforts should be made to locate the official’s body and deliver it to his bereaved family members, Suh said security and operations teams had already been assigned to that task.

By Kim Ji-eun and Noh Ji-won, staff reporters

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