A US soldier arrested when trying to flee across the heavily armed border of North Korea after serving nearly two months in a South Korean prison has been pictured for the first time.
Private 2nd Class Travis King, 23, had been held on assault charges and was released on July 10 after serving his punishment.
But US officials said rather than getting on a plane to be taken back to Fort Bliss, Texas, he instead left and joined a tour of the border village of Panmunjom in South Korea, where he ran across the border.
King’s mother Claudine Gates has spoken out for the first time since his arrest on Tuesday afternoon local time and said: “I’m so proud of him. I just want him to come home, come back to America.”
The mother, who lives in Racine, Wisconsin, insisted she could never envision her son fleeing and crossing the border into North Korea on purpose, adding: “I can’t see Travis doing anything like that.”
The 23-year-old Private 2nd Class was taken to the airport and escorted as far as the customs checking desk, according to officials.
He had been set to return to Fort Bliss to face military action after serving his South Korean sentence – which he had completed in jail for allegedly kicking a South Korean police squad car.
However, King never made it to the plane back to the US but instead left the airport and later joined a tour of Panmunjom, which is often crowded with tourists but dotted with guards.
It is not yet clear how he made it to the border or how he spent his time between leaving the airport on Monday and attempting to cross the border some 24 hours later.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a Pentagon news briefing on Wednesday: “There’s a lot that we’re still trying to learn.
“We believe that he is in (North Korean) custody and so we’re closely monitoring and investigating the situation and working to notify the soldier’s next of kin.”
He added his “foremost concern” is the US soldier’s welfare.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said US officials at the Pentagon, the State Department and the United Nations are all working to “to ascertain more information and resolve this situation.”
King’s attempted border crossing and subsequent arrest comes at a time of explosive tensions on the Korean peninsula, with a US nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine arriving in South Korea on a rare visit.
But hours later North Korea launched two ballistic missiles in a move that threatens to further heighten already fragile tensions.
The ‘Hermit Kingdon’ fired the short-range missiles from an area near the capital of Pyongyang, traveling more than 300 miles before crashing into waters east of the Korean Peninsula.
The Japanese military also said the twin short-range ballistic missiles landed outside its exclusive economic zone. There have so far been no reports of damage to shift or aircraft in the impacted areas.
However, in a horror twist, the flight distance of the missiles from North Korea roughly matched the distance between Pyongyang and the South Korean port city of Busan.
This is where the USS Kentucky arrived hours earlier and came a week after North Korea launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test in three months – two days after warning the US that its spy planes would be targeted.
The Ohio-class subs carry 20 Trident II D5 missiles. Each of these can deliver up to eight nuclear warheads to targets up to 7,500 miles away.
The arrival of the sub came as the US and South Korea launch crucial talks to coordinate their responses in the event of a nuclear war with North Korea.
The Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) was formed in April as part of agreements between Joe Biden and South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol following a meeting between the two leaders.
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