Anchor: South Korea says North Korean troops shot and killed a South Korean fisheries official and then burned his body earlier this week. Seoul has denounced the death near the inter-Korean maritime border, calling on Pyongyang to punish those responsible.
Kim Bum-soo has more.

Report: According to the South Korean military, the South Korea fisheries official crossed into North Korean waters on Monday, and was shot dead the next day by North Korean soldiers onboard a patrol boat.

Lt. Gen. Ahn Young-ho, chief director of operations at the Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS), on Thursday announced the conclusion based on military intelligence. 

[Sound bite: LT. Gen. Ahn Young-ho - chief director of operations, JCS (Korean/English translation)]
"The South Korean military received a report from the Korea Coast Guard at around 1:00 p.m. on September 21 that a fishery inspection ship crew member of the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries went missing in waters one-point-two miles south of Yeonpyeong Island. The missing official had been conducting his fishery inspection duty onboard a patrol ship in waters near Yeonpyeong Island on September 21. Through analyses of various intelligence, our military confirmed that North Korea shot the South Korean national found in the North's waters and carried out a brutal act of burning the body."

A military official explained that a North Korean vessel found the 47-year-old South Korean man exhausted in a small raft along North Korea's western coast on Tuesday afternoon. 

However, the man was never pulled from the water by those onboard. Instead, the North Koreans questioned him from a distance while wearing gas masks apparently due to coronavirus concerns. 

The South Korean man reportedly expressed his intent to defect to North Korea during the process.

Later that night, he was approached by a North Korean patrol boat and shot dead by soldiers who received shoot-to-kill orders, according to South Korean intelligence. His body is believed to have then been incinerated at sea.

The commander of U.S. forces in the South said earlier this month that North Korean authorities have issued shoot-to-kill orders to prevent COVID-19 from entering the country from China. 

The South Korean victim worked for the West Sea Fisheries Management Service in the southwestern port city of Mokpo. 

He was last seen around the southern coast of So-yeonpyeong Island, which lies 13 kilometers from the Northern Limit Line(NLL) border off the western coast of the peninsula. The island coast is some 38 kilometers away from the location where he was killed.  

While denouncing the North, the JCS operations chief demanded Northern authorities punish those responsible for the killing. 

[Sound bite: LT. Gen. Ahn Young-ho - chief director of operations, JCS (Korean/English translation)]
“Our military strongly condemns the North's atrocity and calls for an explanation and punishment of those responsible. Moreover, we issue a stern warning that the North should take all the responsibility for the brutality against the South Korean national."

The National Security Council convened an emergency meeting at the presidential office Thursday afternoon to discuss the issue. 
Kim Bum-soo, KBS World Radio News.