South Korean navy recovers body of seaman missing near North Korean border

SEOUL — The South Korean navy recovered the body of a seaman who went missing at sea over the weekend near the maritime border with North Korea, the navy said in a statement on Monday.

The navy had been conducting a search and rescue operation after the seaman disappeared from a patrol vessel operating off South Korea’s eastern coast. His body was found about 52 kilometers (32 miles) east of the coast, according to the navy.

The navy did not provide details about the circumstances surrounding his disappearance.

South Korea had requested assistance from North Korea and asked for the possible return of the seaman if he had drifted across the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the disputed maritime border between the two countries.

The militaries of North and South Korea remain locked in a tense standoff along their sea and land borders, which were established after the 1950-53 Korean War.

In 2020, a South Korean fisheries ministry official went missing from a patrol vessel off the western coast and drifted across the maritime border before being shot dead by North Korean soldiers. North Korea later issued a rare apology over the incident.

Relations between the two Koreas have deteriorated sharply in recent years, with Pyongyang cutting off communication channels with Seoul. -Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Nia Williams and Christian Schmollinger/Reuters