South Korea’s military detected North Korean soldiers approaching a military demarcation line

 South Korea’s military detected North Korean soldiers approaching a military demarcation line

South Korea’s military detected North Korean soldiers approaching a military demarcation line

By the time when the soldier arrived at a front-line South Korean guard post, there was no shooting from the North, according to South Korea’s Defense Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But later Thursday, South Korea’s military detected North Korean soldiers approaching a military demarcation line at the border before it broadcast a warning and fired 20 rounds of warning shots from machine guns, said a South Korean defense official, requesting anonymity based on department rules.

The latest defection increased to four the number of North Korean soldiers who fled through the land border this year, the Defense Ministry said. About 30,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea mostly via China since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Animosities run high on the Korean Peninsula as North Korea has been accelerating its weapons tests as part of its stated goal of achieving a nuclear missile capable of striking anywhere in the United States . Last month, North Korea test-fired its biggest and most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile.