A Video Captures The Nerve-Racking Escape, Shooting Of North Korean Soldier Who Defected To South

The United Nations Command released a video showing the escape and shooting of a North Korean soldier who defected to South Korea on Wednesday. It could be described as a nerve-racking yet stunning escape of a defector from the despotic leadership of North Korea.

In the video, the North Korean soldier can be seen driving a jeep heading toward the North Korea-South Korea border. Then, he abandons the jeep upon reaching the area and runs toward the border.

However, he is seen by his former comrades and is shot at least five times as he walks lamely into South Korea. A tree covers the wounded defector crawling across the border. Upon reaching the place, he collapses and is dragged by soldiers from South Korea. He is then rushed to a hospital by a U.S. military helicopter in Suwon, the south of Seoul, according to Reuters.

Miraculously, the North Korean defector survived. He regained consciousness after having two operations to extract the bullets, according to the doctors. His breathing now is stable and the doctor said that he is fine and is not going to die, according to Lee Cook-Jong, the lead surgeon. The defector is 24 years old and identified only by his family name, Oh.

Incredible video footage from the tense Korean Demilitarized Zone shows one North Korean soldier’s desperate dash… https://t.co/1lpii3PCDy

— Jacqueline Dang (@jackiedang8) November 24, 2017

The UN Command stated that by firing across the DMZ at the defector, the North Korean soldiers violated the Korean War armistice that oversees the 64-year-old ceasefire agreement. Col. Chad Carroll, the U.S. Forces Korea public affairs director, said that the UN Command had notified the North Korean People’s Army of the violations via regular communication channels and requested a meeting to talk over the results of the UN investigation into the incident and the measures to avoid the said violations in the future, as noted by CNN.

It was also seen in the video that a soldier from the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) had crossed the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), the border between North Korea and South Korea. Carroll added that the key findings of the special investigation team are that the KPA violated the armistice agreement by firing weapons across the MDL and then by actually crossing the MDL temporarily.

[Featured Image by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images]