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.



‘Fear and Anxiety’: Bangkok Residents Seek Quake-Proof Homes 

This photo taken on March 29, 2025 shows cracks on the exterior of a residential condominium building in Bangkok after the March 28 earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. (AFP)
This photo taken on March 29, 2025 shows cracks on the exterior of a residential condominium building in Bangkok after the March 28 earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. (AFP)
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‘Fear and Anxiety’: Bangkok Residents Seek Quake-Proof Homes 

This photo taken on March 29, 2025 shows cracks on the exterior of a residential condominium building in Bangkok after the March 28 earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. (AFP)
This photo taken on March 29, 2025 shows cracks on the exterior of a residential condominium building in Bangkok after the March 28 earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. (AFP)

Shaken hours earlier by a massive earthquake, Phatsakon Kaewkla's terror was magnified when he came home to find gaping cracks in the walls of his 22nd-floor Bangkok apartment.

Feeling unsafe in the building damaged by the biggest tremors to hit the capital in generations, the 23-year-old Thai decided to stay away for two days until experts gave the high-rise the all-clear.

The sales coordinator is now one of many Bangkok residents wondering if they should seek safer housing in a city where hundreds of residential buildings were damaged by the 7.7-magnitude quake that struck neighboring Myanmar on March 28.

The owners of Phatsakon's condominium assured him that engineers had checked every part of the building and concluded it was habitable.

But he is still spooked about the cracks.

"I feel a little bit scared. And also my mum told me to move out from here," he said.

Over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) away from the epicenter, the Thai capital -- its skyline dotted with hundreds of towers and glinting high-rises -- virtually never experiences such tremors.

Bangkok-based real estate consultant Owen Zhu, 40, told AFP that the impact on his sector had been "significant".

"People seem to have realized that living in high-rise buildings might carry greater risks when it comes to earthquake resistance compared to two-story or low-rise structures," the Chinese property expert said.

The earthquake prompted a flurry of enquiries from residents looking to relocate in the past week, he says, due to widespread "fear and anxiety" of living far above ground.

- 'Gap in perception' -

Yigit Buyukergun from Türkiye was at home in Bangkok with his wife when the quake struck. After it subsided, they emerged from under a table to inspect the damage on their 22nd-floor flat.

"Everywhere is cracked, especially in the corridor. You can see all the roof is really bad condition," the 25-year-old said.

Despite Buyukergun's safety concerns, the owners of the block seemed unfazed.

They say it is "100 percent safe, but I don't believe it," he said.

A large number of studio apartments in Bangkok's sprawling residential projects are rented out on annual leases requiring a two-month deposit.

Most condos do not permit short-term rentals for security reasons, and only hotels may lease for under 30 days.

Zhu says tenants and property owners often disagree over the habitability of quake-damaged apartments, with disputes becoming more common.

There is "a gap in perception and judgment between the two parties," he told AFP.

"The landlord sees the unit as safe, while the tenant feels it's unsafe and insists on moving out and getting their deposit back".

- Raising the bar -

Earthquake safety standards for buildings in Thailand were "not particularly strict" before the disaster and not something property-seeking clients specifically asked about, Zhu said.

Heightening anxiety since the quake was the shocking total collapse of a 30-storey construction in Bangkok that trapped dozens of workers, most of whom remain unaccounted for over a week later.

City authorities are now investigating whether substandard building materials had been used in its construction.

Zhu says more of his clients are now opting for low-rises.

For house hunters still considering high-rises, they often require that the property sustained "minimal or no damage during the recent earthquake, or at least was not severely affected".

He believes property prices will grow in the long-term as demand for safer buildings drives the adoption of costly seismic resistance measures, adding that "the bar for Thailand's real estate sector has been raised".

But for Buyukergun, talk of improving building regulations is not enough to calm his fears about the uncontrollable factors of geology.

While the prevalence of earthquakes in his home country of Türkiye made him feel uneasy, he had not expected to feel the same way about Thailand.

"Thailand is safe," he recalled thinking before.

"That's why I couldn't believe (the) earthquake (happened)."