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S. Korean troops in gun battle

June 22, 2014

South Korean troops have engaged in a gun battle with a soldier who shot dead five comrades in a gun and grenade attack. Special commandos and helicopters have been engaged in the search.

https://p.dw.com/p/1CNoA
South Korean army soldiers take position on the roof of a private house to search for a South Korean conscript soldier who is on the run after a shooting incident in Goseong, South Korea, Sunday, June 22, 2014. The military searched Sunday for an armed South Korean soldier who fled after killing five of his comrades and wounding seven at an outpost near the North Korean border. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Image: picture-alliance/AP

The runaway soldier was reported to have opened fire on troops who had tracked him down near a school in the Goseong region, close to the North Korean border.

One officer was shot after soldiers closed in on 23-year-old sergeant, YTN television news reported. The network said "shoot to kill" orders had been issued if the soldier, whose surname military authorities gave as Lim, did not surrender.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that the man's parents had been taken to the site, where his mother pleaded with him to give himself up.

Lim opened fire on his comrades at a guard post in the eastern section of the heavily guarded border between North and South Korea. He fled, taking with him a K2 assault rifle and a supply of ammunition and grenades.

As soon as dawn broke, military helicopters were scouring the forested hillsides of a mountainous region that borders the North.

Returned after day duties

Special forces were among those deployed to help with the hunt in the demilitarized zone that lies between the two Koreas. A colonel with the army said the number of personnel involved in the search was the equivalent of nine battalions.

Yonhap reported that the soldier had thrown a grenade before opening fire after returning from his day's shift duties.

The demilitarized zone is a 4-kilometer-wide (2.5 miles) stretch of land that has served as a buffer zone between the two states since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

South Korea's military has been criticized before for lax discipline in some units, as well as a failure to identify and prevent previous cases in which soldiers, some of them suffering personal problems, have killed their comrades.

Lim had been scheduled for discharged within the next few months, having completed a compulsory period of national service.

rc/mkg (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)