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South Korea sees "high chances" of a person's alleged illegal border crossing into North Korea, a military official said Sunday after Pyongyang claimed that a defector with suspected virus symptoms recently crossed the demarcation line to return home.

"The military is looking into the detailed routes, seeing high chances of a certain person's border crossing into the North," the official said, without identifying the person as the defector mentioned by the North.

"Regarding the North's report, our military has specified some people and is verifying facts in close collaboration with related agencies," the official said.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is reviewing the overall readiness posture of the military, including its monitoring equipment and recorded video clips, he said.

North Korea declares emergency after 'runaway' virus defector returns 2020-07-26 09:16  |  North Korea
The North's official Korean Central News Agency said earlier in the day that leader Kim Jong-un convened an emergency politburo meeting of the ruling Workers' Party and adopted the "maximum emergency system" against the coronavirus after a defector returned home with suspected COVID-19 symptoms.

"An emergency event happened in Kaesong City where a runaway who went to the South three years ago, a person who is suspected to have been infected with the vicious virus, returned on July 19 after illegally crossing the demarcation line," the report said.

North Korean defectors usually receive three months of resettlement education upon their arrival to the South and are put under the support and management of the police for a five-year protection period. But it is known to be practically difficult to follow their movements in real time considering the large number of defectors in the country.

The number of defectors exceeded 30,000 in 2016. A total of 1,047 North Korean defectors arrived in South Korea in 2019 alone. (Yonhap)