This morning (the 24th), a Korean fisherman discovered and reported a small wooden boat with four North Korean residents in the waters off Sokcho, Gangwon-do.

They are known to have expressed their intention to defect to the relevant authorities.

Military authorities said they had captured the fish with surveillance equipment and were tracking it about an hour before the fishermen reported it, but some point out that their response may have been late.

Reporter Song Se-hyuk covered the story.

[Reporter]
A small North Korean wooden ship towed by a Coast Guard patrol vessel enters the Yangyang Gisamun Port naval base.

At around 7:10 a.m., a wooden boat with four North Korean residents was discovered by a Korean fisherman in the sea 11km east of Sokcho, Gangwon-do.

The fisherman said that there were a man and woman in their 20s and 30s and a woman in her 40s and 50s outside the cabin at the time.

[Im Jae-gil / Eyewitness Fisherman: There is a strange boat. No matter how I looked at it, it wasn’t a Korean boat, so he asked, ‘Where is this?’ When I said this was Sokcho, Gangwon-do, I thought, ‘Ah… ‘.]

As soon as this short conversation was over, the man suddenly토토사이트 boarded his fishing boat and attached a rope.

[Im Jae-gil / Eyewitness Fisherman: Just hang the rope on the bow of our boat. That’s what I thought to myself. [Why are there all these guys?]

It is known that the wooden boat was about 7.5m long, equipped with a power device, and had no fishing gear.

North Korean residents who also received bottled water and cigarettes from fishermen reportedly expressed their gratitude through the coast guard.

The Coast Guard, which responded to the report by fishermen, handed over the North Korean residents and the wooden boat to the government joint intelligence investigation team composed of the military and the National Intelligence Service.

North Korean residents are known to have expressed their intention to defect to the relevant authorities at the beginning of the investigation.

The government’s joint intelligence investigation team is investigating their intention to defect, their movement route, and the circumstances.

Military authorities said they first detected the wooden boat with an army radar around 5:30 a.m. and continued tracking it with surveillance equipment, but did not know when it crossed the Northern Limit Line ( NLL ) in the East Sea.

In particular, some point out that the military and police response may have been late as they entered our waters without any restraint and even came into contact with fishermen.