Seoul denounces that North Korea executed and burned a South Korean official

The South Korean Defense Ministry reported on Monday that North Korea has executed a 47-year-old official who disappeared on Monday.

The man, an employee of the Ministry of Fisheries, was last seen aboard an official vessel near the maritime border between the two countries, on the disputed Northern Limit Line (LLN), and apparently intended to defect to the North.

South Korea has condemned what happened and has urged the regime to explain the case, which adds even more tension to a bilateral relationship that is going through a delicate moment.

Ahn Young-ho, head of operations for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), detailed today at a press conference that it is believed that the individual jumped into the sea from the deck with the aim of defecting to the North.

And predictably, the forces of the neighboring country "found the man in its waters and committed a brutal act by shooting him and burning his body," the Ministry explained in a statement.

According to the account of the events offered by the JCS, the North Korean military spotted the man a day later, in the early afternoon of Tuesday, near Cape Deungsan, more than three kilometers within its territorial waters.

The individual was floating thanks to a life jacket and was clinging to an unidentified object.

The sailors approached him, protected with gas masks, and for six hours they interrogated him without rescuing him.

They executed him early in the evening, doused his body with gasoline and set him on fire.

The flames were caught by a South Korean surveillance team stationed on a nearby island.

"Our army firmly condemns this brutal act and strongly urges the North to provide an explanation and punish the guilty," read the statement shared by Defense.

Also the president, Moon Jae-in, has spoken in this regard and has described the case as a "traumatic incident that should not be tolerated under any circumstances."

"The North Korean authorities must take responsible measures," Blue House spokesman Kang Min-seok added at a press conference, while urging the armed forces to strengthen their positions to protect the lives of the country's citizens.

The JCS has pointed out that this reaction could be explained as part of the regime's protocol in the face of the expansion of the coronavirus.

North Korea has made great efforts to fight the pandemic, even though it claims not to have registered a single positive to date.

In January, the country closed its borders with China and, in July, declared a state of maximum alert.

Earlier this month, the general commander of the US troops stationed in Korea, Robert Abrams, claimed that Pyonyang had mobilized troops to the border with orders to shoot anyone who tried to cross it.

At the end of July it was rumored that an infected person could have accessed to swim from the South, although the country's health authorities assured that his name was not among the list of detected cases.

Seoul has tried to contact Pyongang, so far without success, to ask for an explanation about what happened.

This case exacerbates tensions between neighboring countries, which rebounded in 2018 to the point that their athletes competed in the Winter Olympics held in Pieonchang that year under the flag of the unified peninsula.

The ties have since plunged into a negative spiral, which peaked in June this year when the North cut off all communication and immediately dynamited the office of relations with the South erected in its territory just two years earlier.

It is the first time that a South Korean civilian has been killed by the North Korean Army since the regime bombed Yeonpyeong Island in November 2010, killing two of its inhabitants.

Earlier, in July 2008, a soldier had shot and killed a tourist from the South who was visiting the Mount Kumgang tourist complex after it allegedly entered a restricted military zone.