SEOUL: American and South Korean guards shouted “get him” as they scrambled unsuccessfully to stop US Army soldier Travis King from sprinting into North Korea, a New Zealand woman who was on the same tour to the border area said on Wednesday (Jul 19).
“It all happened pretty quickly,” said Sarah Leslie, who was in the Joint Security Area (JSA) of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) with about 40 other tourists who were walking around and taking photos in the moments before King made a mad dash to nuclear-armed and reclusive North Korea.
The group had just left one of the iconic blue buildings that straddles the border between the two Koreas and is used for negotiations, when King suddenly ran between the structures toward the North, she said.
“Someone ran close to me very fast and I thought, ‘What is going on?’,” Leslie told Reuters. “I don’t think anyone who was sane would want to go to North Korea, so I assumed it was some kind of stunt.”
The US military was scrambling on Wednesday to determine King’s fate after what officials said was a wilful, unauthorised crossing of the border into North Korea, throwing Washington into a new crisis in its dealings with the state.
King was wearing jeans, a black shirt and a black hat with the letters “DMZ” printed on it, Leslie said.
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