4 North Koreans defect to South

SEOUL - Four North Koreans defected to South Korea by sea this week and the authorities in the South are questioning them, Seoul's intelligence agency said yesterday.

A spokesman for the agency, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave no further details. But Yonhap, South Korea's national news agency, reported that the defectors were a husband and wife, and their son and daughter-in-law.

Yonhap, which cited no sources, said the four North Koreans were in a small wooden boat when a patrol boat from the South Korean Navy picked them up Tuesday night.

Escapes from North Korea through the heavily guarded land and sea borders between the two Koreas are uncommon. More than 14,000 people from the hunger-stricken North have defected to South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953, but most of the defectors have gone through China.

On Oct. 28, a North Korean believed to be a soldier defected to South Korea, officials in Seoul said. The man reportedly defected at a South Korean military guard post. At the time, the North's military was threatening an attack unless Seoul prevented anti-North Korean "provocations," including the sending of airborne leaflets into the Communist North.

In recent months, conservative activists in the South have been unleashing flights of balloons carrying leaflets into the North. The leaflets harshly criticize the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, and carry news about his reported illness, a topic that is taboo in the North.

NEW YORK TIMES