A Look at Some Americans Who Crossed into North Korea over the past Years

North Korea's flag flies on a tower high above the village of Ki Jong Dong, as seen from Observation Post Ouellette in the Demilitarized Zone, DMZ, the tense military border between the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, Korea, March 25, 2012. (AP)
North Korea's flag flies on a tower high above the village of Ki Jong Dong, as seen from Observation Post Ouellette in the Demilitarized Zone, DMZ, the tense military border between the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, Korea, March 25, 2012. (AP)
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A Look at Some Americans Who Crossed into North Korea over the past Years

North Korea's flag flies on a tower high above the village of Ki Jong Dong, as seen from Observation Post Ouellette in the Demilitarized Zone, DMZ, the tense military border between the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, Korea, March 25, 2012. (AP)
North Korea's flag flies on a tower high above the village of Ki Jong Dong, as seen from Observation Post Ouellette in the Demilitarized Zone, DMZ, the tense military border between the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, Korea, March 25, 2012. (AP)

The US-led United Nations Command is trying to secure the release of an unidentified American soldier who entered North Korea from the South Korean side of a border village.

It’s not immediately clear what motivated the soldier to cross into North Korea during a time of high tensions as the pace of both the North’s weapons demonstrations and US-South Korean joint military training have intensified in a cycle of tit-for-tat.

There have been cases of Americans crossing into North Korea over the past years, including a small number of US soldiers. Some of the Americans who crossed were driven by evangelical zeal or simply attracted by the mystery of a severely cloistered police state fueled by anti-US hatred.

Other Americans were detained after entering North Korea as tourists. In one tragic case, it ended in death.

Here’s a look at Americans who entered North Korea in the past years:

Charles Jenkins

Born in Rich Square, N.C., Charles Jenkins was one of the few Cold War-era US soldiers who fled to North Korea while serving in the South.

Jenkins, then an Army sergeant, deserted his post in 1965 and fled across the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas. North Korea treated Jenkins as a propaganda asset, showcasing him in leaflets and films.

In 1980, Jenkins married 21-year-old Hitomi Soga, a Japanese nursing student who had been abducted by North Korean agents in 1978.

Soga was allowed to return to Japan in 2002. In 2004, Jenkins was allowed to leave North Korea and rejoin his wife in Japan, where he surrendered to US military authorities and faced charges that he abandoned his unit and defected to North Korea. He was dishonorably discharged and sentenced to 25 days in a US military jail in Japan. He died in Japan in 2017.

Matthew Miller

In September 2014, then a 24-year-old from Bakersfield, California, Matthew Miller was sentenced to six years of hard labor by North Korea’s Supreme Court on charges that he illegally entered the country for spying purposes.

The court claimed that Miller tore up his tourist visa upon arriving at Pyongyang’s airport in April that year and admitted to a “wild ambition” of experiencing North Korean prison life so that he could secretly investigate the country’s human rights conditions.

North Korea’s initial announcement about Miller’s detainment that month came as then-President Barack Obama was traveling in South Korea on a state visit.

Miller was freed in November that same year along with another American, Kenneth Bae, a missionary and tour leader.

Weeks before his release, Miller talked with The Associated Press at a Pyongyang hotel where North Korean officials allowed him to call his family. Miller said he was digging in fields eight hours a day and being kept in isolation.

Kenneth Bae

Bae, a Korean-American missionary from Lynnwood, Washington, was arrested in November 2012 while leading a tour group in a special North Korean economic zone.

North Korea sentenced Bae to 15 years in prison for “hostile acts,” including smuggling in inflammatory literature and attempting to establish a base for anti-government activities at a hotel in a border town. Bae’s family said he suffered from chronic health issues, including back pain, diabetes, and heart and liver problems.

Bae returned to the United States in November 2014 following a secret mission by James Clapper, then-US director of national intelligence who also secured Miller’s release.

Jeffrey Fowle

A month before Bae and Miller’s release, North Korea also freed Jeffrey Fowle, an Ohio municipal worker who was detained for six months for leaving a Bible in a nightclub in the city of Chongjin. Fowle’s release followed negotiations that involved retired diplomat and former Ohio Congressman Tony Hall.

While North Korea officially guarantees freedom of religion, analysts and defectors describe the country as strictly anti-religious. The distribution of Bibles and secret prayer services can mean imprisonment or execution, defectors say.

In 2009, American missionary Robert Park walked into North Korea with a Bible in his hand to draw attention to North Korea’s human rights abuses. Park, who was deported from the North in February 2010, has said he was tortured by authorities.

Otto Warmbier

Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, died in June 2017, shortly after he was flown home in a vegetative state after 17 months in North Korean captivity.

Warmbier was seized by North Korean authorities from a tour group in January 2016 and convicted on charges of trying to steal a propaganda poster and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

While not providing a clear reason for Warmbier’s brain damage, North Korea denied accusations by Warmbier’s family that he was tortured and insisted that it had provided him medical care with “all sincerity.” The North accused the United States of a smear campaign and claimed itself as the “biggest victim” in his death.

In 2022, a US federal judge in New York ruled that Warmbier’s parents — Fred and Cindy Warmbier — should receive $240,300 seized from a North Korean bank account, which would be a partial payment toward the more than $501 million they were awarded in 2018 by a federal judge in Washington.



Palestinians Wary as US-backed Aid Group Begins Operations in Gaza

Trucks carrying aid are seen at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, on its Israeli side, May 27, 2025. REUTERS/Shafiek Tassiem
Trucks carrying aid are seen at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, on its Israeli side, May 27, 2025. REUTERS/Shafiek Tassiem
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Palestinians Wary as US-backed Aid Group Begins Operations in Gaza

Trucks carrying aid are seen at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, on its Israeli side, May 27, 2025. REUTERS/Shafiek Tassiem
Trucks carrying aid are seen at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, on its Israeli side, May 27, 2025. REUTERS/Shafiek Tassiem

Palestinians voiced wariness on Tuesday toward a US-backed foundation set to bring aid to Gaza amid signs of famine, with Hamas warnings about biometric screening procedures keeping many away from distribution points.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it began operations on Monday, but there was little indication of Palestinians turning up at distribution centers in southern Gaza even after almost three months of Israel blockading the enclave.

Palestinians said there was no known visits to new sites of distribution on Monday, but on Tuesday dozens headed to one of them established in Rafah to get some aid despite the warnings, at least three witnesses told Reuters.

Others stayed away.

"As much as I want to go because I am hungry and my children are hungry, I am afraid," said Abu Ahmed, 55, a father of seven. "I am so scared because they said the company belongs to Israel and is a mercenary, and also because the resistance (Hamas) said not to go," he said in a message on the chat app WhatsApp.

Israel says the Switzerland-based GHF is a US-backed initiative and that its forces will not be involved in the distribution points where food will be handed out.

But its endorsement of the plan, which resembles Israeli schemes floated previously, and its closeness with the US has led many to question the neutrality of the foundation, including its own former chief, who resigned unexpectedly on Sunday.

The United Nations and other international aid groups have boycotted the foundation, which they say undermines the principle that humanitarian aid should be distributed independently of the parties to a conflict, based on need.

"Humanitarian assistance must not be politicized or militarized," said Christian Cardon, chief spokesperson of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Israel, at war with Gaza's dominant Hamas militant group since October 2023, imposed the blockade in early March accusing Hamas of stealing supplies and using them to entrench its position. Hamas has denied such accusations.

Israeli officials said one of the advantages of the new aid system is the opportunity to screen recipients to exclude anyone found to be connected with Hamas.

Humanitarian groups briefed on the foundation's plans say anyone accessing aid will have to submit to facial recognition technology that many Palestinians fear will end up in Israeli hands to be used to track and potentially target them.

Details of exactly how the system will operate have not been made public.

Israel makes extensive use of facial recognition and other forms of biometric identification in the occupied West Bank and has been reported by Israeli and international media to be using such techniques in Gaza as well.

BEGGING FOR BREAD

Hamas, which has in recent months faced protests by many Palestinians who want the devastating war to end, has also warned residents against accessing GHF sites, saying Israel was using the company to collect intelligence information.

"Do not go to Rafah ...Do not fall into the trap...Do not risk your lives. Your homes are your fortress. Staying in your neighbourhoods is survival, and awareness is your protection," a statement published by the Hamas-linked Home Front said.

"These schemes will be broken by the steadfastness of a people who do not know defeat," it added.

The launch of the new system came days after Israel eased its blockade, allowing a trickle of aid trucks from international agencies into Gaza last week, including World Food Program vehicles bringing flour to local bakeries.

But the amount of aid that has entered the densely populated coastal enclave has been only a small fraction of the 500-600 trucks that UN agencies estimate are needed every day.

"Before the war, my fridge used to be full of meat, chicken, dairy, soft drinks, everything, and now I am begging for a loaf of bread," Abu Ahmed told Reuters via a chat app.

As a small aid flow has resumed, Israeli forces - now in control of large parts of Gaza - have kept up attacks on various targets around the enclave, killing 3,901 Palestinians since a two-month-old ceasefire collapsed in mid-March, according to the Gaza health ministry.

In all, more than 54,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's air and ground war, launched following a cross-border Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023.