A soldier aboard a Navy vessel on patrol duty near the Northern Limit Line in the East Sea went missing Sunday, prompting a military search operation. The government said the soldier may have drifted north of the NLL and asked North Korea to cooperate in the search and repatriation. Photo is unrelated to the article. [Herald DB]
A soldier aboard a Navy vessel on patrol duty near the Northern Limit Line in the East Sea went missing Sunday, prompting a military search operation. The government said the soldier may have drifted north of the NLL and asked North Korea to cooperate in the search and repatriation. Photo is unrelated to the article. [Herald DB]

A soldier aboard a Navy vessel on patrol duty near the Northern Limit Line in the East Sea went missing Sunday, prompting military authorities to launch a search operation.

The government, considering the possibility that the soldier may have drifted north of the NLL, asked North Korea to cooperate in the search and repatriation.

The Navy said Sunday morning that one crew member — an enlisted soldier — went missing from a naval vessel conducting patrol duties in waters about 50 kilometers east of Geojin in the East Sea.

The Navy said it had deployed vessels and aircraft jointly with the Korea Coast Guard to search for the missing soldier, and had also alerted fishing boats and nearby merchant ships in the area to assist. The missing soldier was a private first class assigned to the patrol frigate.

He was last seen in an indoor corridor of the vessel by an officer on watch between midnight and 2 a.m. Sunday.

His absence was discovered when he failed to report for watch duty at 8 a.m.

The Navy and coast guard deployed more than 10 vessels and multiple aircraft in the search.

North Korea was also notified of the disappearance and the ongoing search through international maritime communication channels it is capable of receiving.

Amid the search, the Ministry of Unification issued a press notice Sunday afternoon titled "Request to North Korea for cooperation in search and repatriation following the disappearance of a Navy soldier in the East Sea." The notice stated that the soldier "appears to have possibly drifted north of the NLL" and called on the North to "cooperate in the search and repatriation of the missing person from a humanitarian standpoint."

The ministry said no specific evidence had confirmed that the soldier had crossed north of the NLL, but that it sought North Korea's cooperation as a preemptive measure.

With all inter-Korean communication channels severed, the government conveyed the request to Pyongyang through a media announcement.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-baek, upon receiving the report, ordered officials to do their utmost to rescue the missing soldier as quickly and safely as possible, and directed relevant agencies, including the coast guard, to maintain active coordination.


shindw@heraldcorp.com