South Korean defectors

South Korean defectors are South Korean citizens who have defected to North Korea. Such defections are considerably less frequent than defections by North Koreans to South Korea.

After the Korean War, 333 South Korean prisoners of war detained in North Korea chose to stay in the country. During subsequent decades of the Cold War, some people of South Korean descent defected to North Korea as well. They include Roy Chung, a former U.S. Army serviceman who defected to North Korea through East Germany in 1979. In cases of some disappearances of South Koreans, abduction by North Korea has been accused.

Occasionally, North Koreans who have first defected to South Korea want to return. Because South Korea does not allow naturalized citizens to travel to the North, these people have to make their way back into their home country illegally and become "double defectors". Out of some 25,000 North Korean defectors living in South Korea 800 are missing, some of them due to defecting back to the North. In the first half of 2012 alone there were 200 cases of such double defectors, although officially the South Korean Ministry of Unification recognizes only 13.

The propaganda value of defectors has been recognized even right after the Division of Korea in 1945. Defectors were used as tools to prove the superiority of the political system of the country of destination.

North Korean propaganda has targeted South Korean soldiers patrolling at the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

In total, 357 prisoners of war detained in North Korea after the Korean War wished to stay in North Korea instead of being repatriated to their home countries. These people included 333 South Koreans, 23 Americans, and a Briton. Eight South Koreans and two Americans changed their minds later. The exact number of these prisoners of war held by North Korea and China has been disputed, however, due to unaccounted South Korean soldiers, since 1953.

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