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

The South Korean navy early Monday morning recovered the body of a seaman who had gone missing at sea over the weekend near the maritime border with North Korea. 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.

The body was found approximately 52 kilometers (32 miles) east of the coast. The navy's statement did not provide any details regarding the circumstances surrounding the seaman's disappearance.

South Korea had previously reached out to North Korea, requesting assistance and the possible return of the seaman if he had drifted across the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas.

The militaries of the two Koreas maintain a tense standoff along the land and sea borders established after the Korean War in 1950-53. Relations between the two nations have become sharply hostile in recent years, with Pyongyang severing all communication lines with the South. In a notable incident in 2020, a fisheries ministry official who went missing from a patrol vessel off the west coast drifted across the sea border and was subsequently shot dead by North Korean soldiers. North Korea later issued a rare apology for that incident.