Defector shot

South Korean media is reporting that North Korean soldiers shot dead a defector who was fleeing to China, while on Chinese soil.

An eyewitness was quoted as telling the Yonhap news service that he saw the shooting of a fleeing man who had crossed the border from North Korean into China, across the river boundary that separates the two nations. Previous cross-border violence has escalated into international incidents between the two wary allies. As yet, China has not commented on the report.

"I witnessed on Oct. 22 a North Korean man shot to death by the North's guards, when he stepped onto a Chinese road after crossing the Amok River (known in China as Yalu river) near Hyesan in the northern province of Yanggang," Kim Yong-hwa, of the North Korea Refugees Human Rights Association of Korea told Yonhap.