Home > National > North Korea

Seoul to repatriate 4 North Korean nationals found adrift in East Sea

Published: 12 Jun. 2025, 16:42

YOON SO-YEON
[email protected]

A wooden boat towed by a South Korean military vessel in the East Sea on Oct. 24, 2023 [YONHAP]

South Korea will work to repatriate four North Korean nationals who were rescued while adrift on the South Korean side of the East Sea last month, a government official said Thursday.

South Korea's military and Coast Guard rescued the four North Koreans on May 27 while they were drifting about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of the Northern Limit Line, the de facto inter-Korean maritime border, in the East Sea aboard a small wooden boat.

An official from the Ministry of Unification said all of them have expressed a wish to return to North Korea during a government investigation, saying they crossed the maritime border by mistake.

"The ministry will work to have them returned to North Korea promptly and safely in a humanitarian manner in cooperation with other relevant government agencies," the official told reporters.

It remains unclear, however, whether Pyongyang will respond to Seoul's approach to discuss their repatriation.

Two separate North Korean nationals were rescued in the Yellow Sea in a similar case in March, but they have remained in South Korea for more than three months amid North Korea's continued silence in efforts to repatriate them.

A 5-ton wooden boat used by 31 North Korean nationals who drifted south across the Yellow Sea on Feb. 5, 2011. Four defected to the South, while the remaining 27 returned to the North. [YONHAP]

Sending North Koreans home across the land border requires approval from the United Nations Command, which oversees the ceasefire of the 1950-53 Korean War, but the North has remained unresponsive to the command's attempted contact regarding the repatriation.

Pyongyang has refused all forms of inter-Korean communication since December 2023, when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared South Korea a “hostile foreign state.”

The severed ties have blocked efforts to coordinate the return of North Korean citizens who unintentionally cross the maritime boundary.

However, with President Lee Jae-myung now in office and emphasizing renewed dialogue with Pyongyang, onlookers speculate that repatriation talks for the recent maritime cases may resume.

In fact, Lee ordered the army to halt all of its loudspeaker broadcasts to North Korea on Wednesday afternoon. All speakers were immediately turned off, and the North also stopped its broadcasts and instead played "peaceful tunes," according to military officials.

BY YOON SO-YEON, YONHAP [[email protected]]