Defector tries returning to North Korea on stolen bus

South Korean police have detained a North Korean defector for attempting to cross the heavily-guarded border back to the North on a stolen bus.

The man was caught Tuesday on the Unification Bridge that separates the two Koreas, where he ignored soldiers who asked him to stop and crashed the bus into a barricade.

Though some 34,000 North Koreans have defected to the South since the Korean peninsula was divided more than 70 years ago, defectors seeking to return to the North are rare.

The man, who is in his 30s, told police he had wanted to return home after experiencing difficulties in the South, according to South Korean media. He reportedly left North Korea about a decade ago.

He reportedly stole the bus at 01:00 local time on Tuesday (16:00 GMT Monday) from a garage in the northern city of Paju and was caught half an hour later.

Surveillance footage from the garage showed the man wearing a hat, trying to open several vehicles until he managed to get into the bus.

He was not found to have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the incident, reports say.

The man, who has worked as a day labourer in Paju and other cities, told police that he had accumulated several unpaid fines, according to South Korean newspaper The Dong-A Ilbo.

South Korea’s law prohibits citizens, including defectors, from crossing the border to the North without government authorisation. North Korean defectors in the South are automatically granted citizenship. Offenders may be jailed up to ten years if convicted.

South Korea receives over 1,000 defectors from the North each year. In contrast, the number of defectors returning to North Korea totalled just 31 from 2012 to 2022, according to the South’s Unification Ministry.

Some make the return, or attempt to do so, because the lives of defectors in the South sometimes fall short of expectations. The defectors earn around 2.3 million won ($1,740; £1,300) per month on average, according to a survey from Korea Hana Foundation published on Tuesday.

Others want to go back to see their family members.

However these returns are risky. Some returnees have been imprisoned while others have undergone rigorous re-education back in the North.

In January 2022, a defector in his 30s returned to North Korea after a year in the South. He had struggled to resettle in the South as he was “barely scrapping a living”, reports said, citing South Korean officials.