WASHINGTON – North Korea typically claims defections from the oppressed, tightly controlled hermit country are kidnappings by South Koreans.
But stunning footage was released by the American-led United Nations Command showing a disease-ridden North Korean soldier fleeing across the border into South Korea while being shot by his comrades.
The footage, released Wednesday, marks the first time the U.N. Command disclosed security footage of a defection across the heavily fortified demilitarized zone, or DMZ, that divides North and South Korea, said Hochong Song, a public affairs officer for U.S. Forces Korea.
The 24-year-old soldier can be seen speeding on the North Korean side of the DMZ toward the border in a vehicle as fellow military officers fire at him.
The wounded defector then crawls across the border, finally emerging on South Korean territory before collapsing and being pulled into safety by border guards.
More than 40 bullets were fired at him from pistols and an AK-47, according to South Korea’s military.
South Korean troops did not return fire.
The security footage, captured on Nov. 13, was produced from surveillance cameras on the southern side of the Joint Security Area inside the demilitarized zone.
Only the soldier’s surname, Oh, has been publicly disclosed. He had served in the North Korean military for eight years.
Oh was struck by bullets five times, in his right hip, shoulder and knee, as well as the left side of his back and shoulder.
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North Korean soldiers violated the Korean War armistice that paused the Korean War in 1953 by firing across the DMZ at the defector, said the U.N. Command, which oversees the 64-year-old cease-fire agreement.
The soldier also violated the armistice by crossing the military demarcation line, said U.S. Forces Korea public affairs director Col. Chad Carroll.
A peace treaty formally ending the war has never been signed.
“The armistice agreement was challenged, but it remains in place,” said Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, the American who leads the U.N. Command.
Thirty minutes after Oh was brought from the border village of Panmunjom by air to Ajou University Hospital, about 50 miles away, he underwent multiple surgeries.
His surgeon, Lee Cook-jong, said Oh lost more than 50 percent of his blood by the time he arrived. He was given four pints of blood, but his intestines and motor functions are also permanently damaged.
Oh is also being treated for hepatitis B, severe parasitic worms and tuberculosis.
Dozens of fully grown parasitic worms were discovered in his ruptured small intestine, revealing the desolate conditions North Koreans endure under the reign of dictator Kim Jong Un and the poor nutrition in North Korea’s military.
“In my 20 years as a surgeon, I have only seen something like this in a medical textbook,” Lee Cook-Jong told reporters.
Oh’s team of surgeons announced Wednesday he is on the road to recovery and is now able to breathe on his own. But he has not recovered enough to be interrogated.
His doctor also said Oh, for the first time, is enjoying American TV and Korean pop music.
“The patient will not die,” surgeon Lee Cook-jong said, “but he is showing signs of depression due to much stress from the gunshot injuries and two major surgeries. The Psychiatry and Behavioral Science Department will do an assessment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
“We played him three versions of Girls’ Generation’s ‘Gee’ – the original version, the rock version and the indie-band version – and he said he likes the original version the best and that he loves girl groups,” he said. “We showed him a cable TV movie channel, and he said he likes the American drama ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’ and American films.”
Cook-jong said Oh fled to South Korea of his own free will.
North Korean defectors typically suffer from a large numbers of stomach parasites or hepatitis B, according to a 2015 study Dankook University College of Medicine in South Korea.
The study of 169 defectors found that seven of 17 female subjects who provided stool samples had parasites.
The use of human fertilizer on crops and poor sanitary conditions lead to the transmission of parasitic cysts in North Korea, Choi Min-ho, a professor at Seoul National University College of Medicine who specializes in parasites, told CNN.
Min-ho said at least half of the population of North Korea, which has a history of famines, is likely to have parasites from malnourishment.
As much as 70 percent of the country’s 25 million people still don’t eat a “sufficiently diverse diet,” according to the U.N. World’s Food Program estimates.
North Korea has yet to address Oh’s escape and video showing the defector’s apparent desire to flee the regime.
According to statistics from the Human Freedom Initiative at the Bush Institute, an estimated 300,000 North Koreans have defected from the strict communist country since the hostilities of the Korean War ended in 1953.
More than 30,000 North Koreans have defected since 1998, according to the Ministry of Unification statistics, the year a famine claimed more than 1 million lives.
There are several hundred North Korean immigrants currently residing across the United States.
After President George W. Bush signed the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 into law, approximately 225 North Korean refugees were directly granted asylum in the United States.
Vernon Brewer, founder and president of World Help, a Christian humanitarian organization that supports the defectors, told Fox News last month that South Korea welcomes its oppressed, poverty-ridden neighbors.
“Most defectors head to China, but if they are caught there, they will likely be returned to North Korea, where they are punished harshly. Therefore, many either live their lives under the radar or make the harrowing trip to South Korea. There, North Korean defectors are welcomed by the government,” Brewer said. “South Korea longs for reunification and sees the suffering North Koreans as their neighbors.”
After spending time in South Korea and receiving South Korean citizenship, North Koreans have arrived as legal immigrants to the United States since 2004.
North Koreans are granted automatic citizenship after undergoing a three-month transition that consists of education on how to assimilate in an open society.
