More than 14-hundred North Koreans defected to South Korea last year.

According to the Unification Ministry on Tuesday, the number of North Koreans arriving in the South last year was estimated at one-thousand-414, up eleven percent from a year earlier.

It is the first time the annual number of defectors increased since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un took power in late 2011. 

Two-thousand-706 North Koreans defected to the South in 2011, but the number dropped to one-thousand-502 in 2012, one-thousand-514 in 2013, one-thousand-397 in 2014 and one-thousand-276 in 2015.

The turnaround is attributed to the growing hardships of living in the North under the bolstered reign of fear by Kim and strengthened international sanctions on the regime.

A total of 30-thousand-208 North Koreans were estimated to be staying in the South as defectors as of the end of last year. 

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