SEOUL: The number of North Korean defectors making it to the South tripled last year to 196 after a run of coronavirus pandemic-linked lows, Seoul said on Thursday, with more elite diplomats and students seeking to escape.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s, with most going overland to neighboring China first, then entering a third country such as Thailand before finally making it to the South.

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