How It Got So Easy to Breach North Korea’s Notorious Border
The “truce village” straddling the line between North and South Korea where the Korean War armistice was signed 70 years ago is now more like a sieve than a barrier to anyone thinking of leaping to the other side.
Bizarrely, it’s North Korea’s caution that has left them so exposed.
“There are no North Korean guards because of the COVID lockdown on their side,” said Victor Cha, who served as Asia director at the National Security Council when George W. Bush was president. Once Army Private Second-Class Travis King “made a break for it,” Cha told The Daily Beast, the American and South Korean military guides “can't run after him.”—that is, across the line into the North in the truce village of Panmunjom 35 miles north of Seoul.