The border between the two Koreas, one of the most militarized areas in the world

A United States citizen has been arrested for trespassing today in North Korea during a visit to the heavily militarized border that divides the two Koreas.

Considered the last frontier of the Cold War, the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is a four-kilometer-wide strip that runs for 250 kilometers, cut by the 38th parallel, through the Korean peninsula, dividing it into two countries, the Democratic Republic of Korea to the north and the Republic of Korea to the south.

In addition to separating the two countries, the DMZ is also an ideological border that delimits an autocratic communist regime to the north and a democratic capitalist state to the south. The border was established at the end of the conflict that began in 1948 between the United States and the communist government of North Korea.

With the ceasefire between the combatants in 1953, the two parties agreed to retreat two kilometers from their lines to the north and south from what is known as the Military Demarcation Line (LMD), which was the place where the war front of the two armies in contention was located.

Converted into one of the most guarded borders and with the greatest military presence in the world, the separation between the two Koreas is an area full of fences and barbed wire, riddled with antipersonnel mines to prevent it from being crossed illegally in either direction.

A military presence that makes human activity difficult and at the same time makes it a refuge for wildlife, as demonstrated by the Google Arts & Culture project, published in March 2023, which proves how wild species have developed in a virgin area with hardly any human presence for decades.

Americans in North Korea

Otto Warmbier was arrested in January 2016, when he was 21 years old. The young man was visiting North Korea as a tourist and after his arrest was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for trying to steal a propaganda poster from the hotel where he was staying, which the North Korean government considered a “hostile act” against the state.

The US government managed to get Pyongyang to release the young man in June 2017, but Warmbier had been in a coma for more than a year, entering a state shortly after his last public appearance, during his trial in Pyongyang in March 2016.

North Korean authorities say Warmbier suffered a bout of botulism and was given a sleeping pill but never woke up again.

The family refuted that version and maintains that their son was tortured into a coma.

In 2015, a US citizen managed to secretly cross from China to North Korea, where he was held for nine weeks, during which he was interrogated, before being returned to the neighboring country.

The American had resided in North Korea “five or six months” in 2014 working as an aid worker on a farm in Rajin (northeast) and decided to re-enter after the North Korean authorities denied him a visa for an organized trip.

In November 2017, another 58-year-old American tourist tried to cross into North Korea, according to what he said by “political reasons”but was stopped in South Korea when he tried to cross the border.

Illegal crossings through the border crossing between the two Koreas are not uncommon, but they practically always take the opposite direction and are carried out by North Koreans, sometimes soldiers, who defect to South Korea.

One of the most notable cases occurred on November 13, 2017, when a Northern soldier fled to the South through the Joint Security Zone (JSA) under fire from his comrades. The defector managed to reach the South Korean border and survive.

In recent years, the number of North Koreans who have managed to reach South Korea has been greatly reduced (from almost 1,000 who arrived in 2019, it has dropped to just over 60 in 2021 and 2022).

Desertions across the sea or land borders between the two countries are rare due to the level of military surveillance that exists between the dividing lines, which is why most North Koreans who decide to leave their country do so across the border with China.

Tourism in the DMZ

The demilitarized zone is also a tourist attraction. Both with departures in Seoul (South Korea) and from Piongyan in the north. Travel agencies offer tourists to visit the border and learn about the eventful history of the two countries. From the south, travelers can get a glimpse of North Korean territory and see the Freedom Bridge, the Third Infiltration Tunnel, and the DMZ Museum.

For their part, North Korean agencies offer visits to Panmunjo, the building where the armistice was signed between the contenders seventy years ago, the Peace Museum or the monument to President Kim Il Sung and the Military Demarcation Line.

Source: EFE