The South Korean military spotted a North Korean vessel stranded near the de facto inter-Korean maritime border in the East Sea on Sunday.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS) said that South Korean maritime patrol aircraft spotted the vessel drifting in waters 200 kilometers east of the coastal town of Jejin in Gangwon Province and around three kilometers north of the eastern Northern Limit Line(NLL) at 2:15 p.m.

After the aircraft saw passengers aboard the vessel waving a large white object in the air and recognized it as a distress signal, the military dispatched a patrol ship that confirmed that it was a North Korean craft.

The military did not inspect the identities of the passengers as the small vessel, some ten meters long, was in waters north of the NLL.

The JCS said that the people onboard reported that they had been adrift for ten days and wished to return to the North, requesting assistance with food and water.

The South Korean military fulfilled the request on humanitarian grounds and notified the North of the situation through the United Nations Command and international maritime communication channels to facilitate a rescue operation.

A military official in Seoul said on Monday that the vessel was towed away by another North Korean ship late Sunday, but declined to confirm whether the latter was a naval craft.