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| ▲ This photo, taken Jan. 20, 2023, shows Lee Hyo-jung, deputy spokesperson at South Korea's unification ministry, speaking at a regular press briefing. (Yonhap) |
N Korea-body return
S. Korea offers to return body of presumed N. Korean man
SEOUL, June 9 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's unification ministry said Friday it plans to return the body of a presumed North Korean man found near a western island in May.
The body was discovered near Ganghwa Island in the Yellow Sea on May 19 and the man, believed to be in his 20s or 30s, seems to be a North Korean, given his belongings, according to the ministry.
"The government plans to send the body and his belongings at 3 p.m. on June 16 via the border village of Panmunjom on humanitarian grounds," Lee Hyo-jung, the ministry's deputy spokesperson, said at a regular press briefing.
She called on the North to swiftly notify its stance through the now-suspended inter-Korean liaison communication channel.
The ministry was not able to send a related notice to the North as the secretive regime has remained unresponsive to daily routine calls with South Korea through the liaison communication channel since April.
The South Korean military discovered the body last month and found suspected drugs from his belongings. Authorities presumed he may have been drowned while crossing the Northern Limit Line, the de facto inter-Korean maritime border.
In July last year, the government proposed to return the body of a presumed North Korean woman via Panmunjom. But the North did not respond to the South's offer.
Since 2010, the ministry has sent back a total of 23 bodies of North Koreans who were found in the South, most recently in November 2019.
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