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The South Korean military tows a small wooden boat (circled in red) that was discovered by South Korean fishers in the waters near Sokcho after crossing the Northern Limit Line from North Korea on Oct. 24 carrying four North Koreans. (Yonhap)

Four unidentified North Koreans were found at sea off the coast of Sokcho, Gangwon Province, on Tuesday after they crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the East Sea on a small wooden boat.

These individuals have reportedly expressed their intent to defect to South Korea to authorities.

The Coast Guard found the wooden boat carrying the North Koreans only after fishers reported the vessel, calling into question whether the military’s marine and coastal alert system is properly functioning.

In a press release issued the same day, the Coast Guard shared that a South Korean fishing vessel that was operating in waters 11 kilometers east of Sokcho came across a small North Korean wooden boat around 7:10 am. “Following the fisher’s report, the Sokcho Coast Guard was immediately dispatched, and a patrol boat confirmed at the scene that four North Koreans were on the boat, turning them over to the government’s joint intelligence investigation team,” read the statement.

One man and three women were reportedly on the boat.

During an interview with the media, Im Jae-gil, 60, the fisher who found these individuals and reported them, said, “I asked whether they were from North Korea, and they nodded yes. So, I told them, ‘Welcome, in any case.’”

Im was reportedly working by himself when he spotted a suspicious boat that was dark in color and different in appearance from typical South Korean ships. He intuitively realized it was North Korean and reported it to the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives’ fishing boat safety bureau in Sokcho.

Although the North Korean boat reached waters east of Sokcho, which is 40 to 50 kilometers (around 25-21 miles) south of the NLL, military authorities didn’t identify it as a wooden boat for three hours after unusual signs were picked up on surveillance equipment. Moreover, the military was not able to find the North Korean boat until the fisher reported it.

Nevertheless, military authorities claimed that their “marine detection and tracking system functioned normally,” sharing that “operational measures were being taken since before 4 am in case of various situations due to unusual signs in waters north of the NLL in the East Sea.”

A military official explained, “There were signs seemingly indicating the North Korean military was looking for something north of the NLL, so in case of their southward movement, naval vessels and P-3Cs were on a search operation near the NLL,” claiming that activities in North Korea were observed ahead of time.

An official from the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated, “Around 5:30 am, an unidentified target was detected in waters 10 miles northeast of Sokcho on the Army’s coastal warning radar,” adding, “This target, which moved slowly and at a steady pace, was tracked and the information was shared in real time with the Navy.”

Afterward, the target grew closer to the inland sea around 6:30 am, and a thermal observation device at the Army’s coastal post continued to track it, resulting in the judgment that it was the boat in question around 6:59 am.

Reportedly, the crisis response organization of the 3rd Army Corps went into action, and the military kept watch on the target. It is the military’s claim that the fisher’s report about the wooden boat was received during this process. Moreover, it asserted that if the North Korean boat came closer to shore, follow-up measures would have been taken, such as the dispatch of a high-speed boat by the Navy to check for anomalies.

This explanation seems to have been provided as part of a conscious effort not to stir the kind of criticism the military received when a North Korean wooden boat arrived at Samcheok Port in June 2019. On June 15 that year, a small North Korean boat crossed the NLL in the East Sea and spent three days in the water, but military officials did not realize this until it arrived at Samcheok Port and was reported by local residents. At the time, Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon and Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo apologized to the public, as the military and the police’s marine and coastal security network did not function at all.

The Joint Chiefs stressed that the wooden boat that crossed over to the South this time was discovered even though it was smaller than the wooden boat that arrived at Samcheok Port in 2019, with the former being 7 meters long while the latter was 10 meters in length.

During a parliamentary inspection of the Navy Headquarters conducted by the National Assembly’s National Defense Committee at the Gyeryong complex in South Chungcheong Province, on Tuesday, Democratic Party lawmaker Ki Dong-min pointed out, “The public is apprehensive because of concerns that [the military] missed the North Korean boat due to a failure to stay alert.”

To this, a military official responded, “In June 2019, military authorities had no idea of the North Korean wooden boat until it arrived at Samcheok Port, but this time, procedural measures were being taken based on the detection and tracking of an abnormal vessel.”

By Kwon Hyuk-chul, staff reporter

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