The Ministry of Unification said Wednesday that the number of North Korean defectors coming to South Korea increased by nearly 60 percent in the first seven months of this year compared to last year.

According to the ministry, a total of one-thousand-54 North Koreans have come to the country as of the end of July, up 59 percent from the previous year.

The number of North Koreans coming to the South has steadily increased since the late 1990s. More than one-hundred have found their way to the South in 1999, and the number broke through the one-thousand mark for the first time ever, in 2002.

The number hit a record high of one-thousand-894 in 2004, before dropping to one-thousand-383 in 2005.

The total number of North Koreans defecting to the South so far stands at eight-thousand-741.