South Korean military authorities yesterday surrounded a soldier who fled his North Korea border outpost after killing five comrades and were trying to persuade him to surrender, a defense official said.
One platoon leader was wounded when the runaway soldier, identified only by his surname, Yim, fired on the military personnel closing in on him, according to a South Korean Ministry of Defense official who asked not to be named, citing department rules. The official said troops fired back. It was not clear how officers were communicating with Yim.
Yim opened fire on Saturday night with his standard-issue K2 rifle at an outpost near the North Korean border in Gangwon Province, east of Seoul, killing five fellow soldiers and wounding seven others, the military said.
Photo: Reuters
Villagers in a nearby area were told not to leave their houses. The village head, Jang Seok-kwon, said that he heard gunshots about 10 times.
Yim, who was scheduled to be discharged from the military in September, fled with his weapon, but it was not clear how much unspent ammunition he had.
A ministry official confirmed that Yim was considered a “protected and watched-on soldier,” which means he needed special attention among servicemen.
Photo: AFP
According to the official, the South Korean military assigns such status based on servicemen’s periodical personality tests.
Yim was designated a “grade A” protected soldier in April last year — one at high risk of suicide or inducing other accidents and who could not serve at heavily guarded outposts — then improved to “grade B” status in November. It means he was being watched with focused attention, but could serve at the outposts with the commander’s discretion.
Thousands of troops from the rival Koreas are squared off along the world’s most heavily armed border.
There was no indication that North Korea was involved.
Tensions between the two countries have been high recently, with North Korea staging a series of missile and artillery drills and threatening South Korea’s leader. The Koreas have also traded fire along their disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea. South Korea has repeatedly vowed to respond with strength if provoked by the North.
Shootings happen occasionally at the border.
In 2011, a 19-year-old marine corporal went on a shooting rampage at a Gwanghwa Island base, just south of the maritime border with North Korea.
Military investigators later said the corporal was angry about being shunned and slighted and showed signs of mental illness before the shooting.
In 2005, a soldier tossed a hand grenade and opened fire at a frontline army unit in a rampage that killed eight colleagues and injured several others. Private first class Kim Dong-min told investigators he was enraged at superiors who verbally abused him.
Most South Korean men must serve about two years in the military under a conscription system.
The Korean Peninsula is still technically in a state of war as the 1950 to 1953 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 US soldiers are stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korean aggression.
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