SEOUL, Feb. 4 (Yonhap) -- A total of 236 North Koreans defected to South Korea last year to resettle, marking a roughly 20 percent increase from the previous year, a unification ministry official said Tuesday.
The 2024 total, including 210 women, compared with 196 in 2023, bringing the accumulated number of North Korean defectors in South Korea to 34,314, the official said on condition of anonymity. Of them, 24,746 are women.
Of those who defected to South Korea last year, only three crossed the inter-Korean border, while most others stayed in a third country before flying to the South.
The increase in the 2024 tally could be attributed to the lifting of COVID-19 border controls, which facilitated the inflow of North Korean defectors who had stayed in a third country for an extended period, according to the ministry official.
The 2024 defectors also included several high-level North Korean officials, the total of whom was in the single digits, the official said, without providing further details due to personal security risks.
The reason women account for the lion's share of defection is that men in North Korea are often more tightly bound by organizations and must show up for work every day, while women are less bound by these requirements, the official noted.
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