Where the DMZ ends and the maritime blur begins

*North Korea on the right, South Korea on the left, the Yellow Sea in the background seen from the Aegibong observatory on the Han River estuary in March 2024.*

The Han River, or Hangang, is one of South Korea's major rivers, flowing through Seoul before emptying into the Yellow Sea. It has played an important role in Korean history and was a trade route to China.

Its estuary, often called “Jogang” (the “Grandfather River”), marks the border between North and South Korea since 1953. This has deprived Seoul of direct access to the sea, navigation in the estuary having become impossible.

After the very precisely demarcated MDL and DMZ, this is where the more blurred maritime border begins. Is this one more or less difficult for defectors to cross than the land one? Nobody knows. But a few brave and desperate people have made it - in one direction or the other.

Direct consequence of geopolitical tensions, as well as the majesty of the landscape, what strikes you when you contemplate the Jogang is the silence.

For more than 70 years, this 67 km long estuary has been the "maritime DMZ", bordered on both sides by minefields, fortifications and death traps of all kinds.

No human being can enter its waters without being arrested or shot.

No fishing boat can venture here without being immediately sunk, probably by both sides.

*North Korean landscape seen from Aegibong Observatory (March, 2023).*

Although the 1953 armistice agreement stipulated that ‘The waters of the Han River Estuary shall be open to civil shipping of both sides’, and despite some negotiations in this regard during the rare periods of détente between the two Koreas, this never happened.

In a normal world, a place like this should be teeming with human activity, merchant ships passing through on their way to Seoul, families picnicking on the banks, fishing boats stalking eels or strollers collecting shellfish at low tide - when you could practically walk from one shore to the other.

*Yu Island, or Yu-do, in the middle of the Han River. In 1997, a South Korean army detachment landed there to rescue a North Korean cow that had been washed away by a violent flood.*

Instead, it's eerily quiet, except for the cries of migratory birds and the occasional distant sound of artillery exercises on either side of the border.

The contrast between the South Korean and North Korean mountains is also striking: the former are mostly covered in thick forests, the latter are brown and peeling - wood is still the most widely used fuel for heating in the North.

A buffer zone between two extremes, with a fascinating strangeness.

*A visitor looks at North Korea, on the other bank of the Han River, through a telescope at the Aegibong observatory (March 2024).*

The Aegibong Peace Eco Park, in Gimpo City, the Ganghwa Peace Observatory, on Ganghwa Island, and the Odusan Unification Observatory, at the beginning of the estuary, are among the best places from which to observe life in North Korea.

From Aegibong, the North Korean bank is only 1.4 kilometer away, and offers a fascinating, somehow voyeuristic peek into a forbidden world, just over an hour's drive from sprawling, ultra-modern and capitalist Seoul.

*Amsil village, North Korea, seen from the Aegibong observatory in March 2024.*

The picture above shows the village of Amsil, with its "Immortality Tower" that commemorates the "eternal president" Kim Il Sung and the "eternal general" Kim Jong Il. Under North Korean law, every village must have one.

The large building in the center of the image is the “House of Culture”, a community center designed to promote socialist ideology, education, and arts. These facilities are integral to North Korea's state-controlled cultural and educational system. They host collective activities and cultural events, as well as lectures and study sessions focused on Juche (the state ideology of self-reliance) and the teachings of the country's leaders.

Houses of culture are part of a broader network of institutions aimed at shaping the cultural and ideological landscape of North Korea, ensuring that the state's narrative and values are deeply ingrained in society.

The upper slogan, between the House of Culture and the Immortality Tower, says: "Long live the great Comrade Kim Jong-un's revolutionary ideology!” (위대한김정은동지 혁명사상만세, “Wideahan Kim Jong Un—dongji hyeongmyeongsasang manse!”). The other one on the right says: "Let's defend our revolution with rice!" (쌀로써 우리혁명을 보위하자, “Ssal rosseo uri hyeongmyeong eul bowihaja!”)

*A North Korean shepherd walks his flock of sheep on the banks of the Han River (March 2024).*

The South Korean authorities claim that this settlement, like others located a stone's throw from the border, are ‘propaganda villages’ where no one really lives. In particular, they point out that the windows of many of the buildings appear to have no glass.

However, the number of people walking and cycling through the streets, working in the fields or herding sheep just next to the barbed wire fence near the river suggests that this is indeed a place where real folks live. The fact that people can live in houses with windows that have no panes is not entirely implausible, given the testimonies of North Korean defectors.

South Korean rightist militants sometimes gather at the observatories near the river to shout anticommunist slogans at the North. For its part, North Korea broadcasts deafening soundtracks at night (gunshots, sinister laughters, wolves howl and ghosts cackle) to disturb the sleep of their “downstairs neighbours”…

*The North Korean village of Samdal, seen from the Ganghwa Observatory in March 2024. A single fence separates these houses from the border river.*

During the Christmas season, Christian groups sometimes put up a giant Christmas tree in Aegibong, so that people on the other side of the river can see its multicoloured lights shining at night and experience a culture shock, as chronic electricity shortages in North Korea keeps them in the dark most of the time. North Korea calls it “an unbearable insult and mockery” to it’s front-line soldiers and a “direct declaration of a war”. In the past, it has threatened to shell the Christmas tree.

It is also surprising to see that the defences on the north side of the border are, apparently, much less imposing than those on the south side.

On the north bank, you can generally see two simple barbed wire or electric fences separated by a sentry walk. While the fortifications on the south side are reminiscent of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. In the north, you can see shepherds venturing out with their flocks very close to the river's edge, something unthinkable in the south.

*A North Korean village seen from Aegibong Observatory (March 2024).*

There are several reasons for this.

South Korea's main concern is to prevent infiltration by North Korean agents, as has happened many times in history. Hence the double or triple barbed wire and electric fences, surveillance cameras, watchtowers and other massive fortifications lining the Han river from the Yellow Sea to the gates of Seoul.

*Visitors watch North Korea from Aegibong Observatory (March 2024).*

North Korea's main concern is not to deter infiltration by the South Korean and American armies (although this may happen) but to prevent its inhabitants from defecting to the South. It doesn't need a lot of barbed wire for that, as the authorities exercise such strict control over the entire population, all over the country.

The songbun, the socio-political caste system in force in the country since the late 1950s, classifies all citizens into three categories: “core”, “wavering” and “hostile”, each of which contains a number of subcategories.

*A South Korean watchtower on the Hangang Estuary, seen from the Ganghwa Observatory in March 2024.*

The songbun status is determined by the government, specifically through the Workers' Party of Korea and the state security agencies. It is typically assigned at birth. It is influenced by the political background of one's ancestors, particularly focusing on their actions and allegiances during the Japanese occupation, the Korean War and the early years of the North Korean state. Having family members living in South Korea has a negative impact one’s songbun, and while it is very difficult to move up to the next class, sudden falls are common for anyone who commits an act considered to be anti-revolutionary (and for the entire family of the culprit).

Almost every aspect of a citizen's life is determined by their level of songbun: education, employment, housing, access to resources, right to travel around the country, etc. Only citizens with the highest songbun can live in the capital Pyongyang, become members of the Workers' Party of Korea or hold positions of responsibility within the state. Individuals and families with low songbun are often relocated to rural or remote areas, where living conditions are harsher.

*Observation deck, Ganghwa Peace Observatory.*

While there haven't been widespread, forced displacements of the entire population in the regions near the South Korean border, specific groups or individuals with low songbun have been relocated to other parts of the country to minimize the risk of defections.

In addition, all travel within North Korea requires a permit, which is systematically checked at the exit of every major city and at the border of every province. Access to border provinces requires a special permit, which must be approved by the dreaded Bowibu, the Ministry of State Security.

The population living along the banks of the Han River estuary is therefore considered to be generally safe, hence the lack of need to enclose them behind high fences.

However, in late 2024, North Korea has vowed to fortify its southern border with “strong defense structures” to cope with “confrontational hysteria” by South Korean and United States forces. South Korean officials believe that this increased border security is also intended to prevent soldiers from defecting.

*The Memorial sculpture at Ganghwa Observatory, overlooking the North Korean bank of the Han River. Each of the three posts in front of the statue has a button you can click to listen to a version of* Longing for Mount Kumgang, a famous 1962 South Korean folk song mourning the country's division, including one by the versatile Spanish opera singer Placido Domingo.

Although very rare, defections across the Han River estuary do occur.

In 2014, a father and son, who had used bribes to obtain the right to live near the border, took advantage of the ebb tide to let themselves be carried by night by the Ryesong River, which flows into the estuary opposite the South Korean island of Ganghwa, using makeshift buoys made from bicycle inner tubes. They had previously spent a year studying the tidal cycle. They were rescued by the South Korean army as they waded through the muddy estuary.

*The North Korean side of the Han River Estuary, seen from the South (March 2024).*

And in 2020, a 24 year-old defector who had been living in South Korea for some time made his way back to the North, swimming across the estuary after passing through a drain under barbed wire fences in Ganghwa.

In the process, he introduced Covid-19 to North Korea, at a time when the country had completely cut itself off from the world to avoid being affected by the pandemic.

Sometimes North Korean defectors, unable to adapt to their new life in the capitalist, ultra-competitive South where social status is everything and where they are nothing, make desperate attempts to return to their former side of the border. Some of them succeed. We don't know what happens to them, but the story is probably not a happy one.

*The Ganghwa Peace Observatory, in March 2024.*

Positioned on the northernmost mountain of the island, the Ganghwa Observatory also provides interesting exhibitions related to North Korea. Like Aegibong, the Ganghwa observatory is located inside the Civilian Control Zone.

The Han River Estuary

So far apart and yet so close

Odusan