South Korea was using loudspeakers to broadcast updates about a North Korean soldier who defected to South Korea to his fellow military members across the Demilitarized Zone, the Yonhap News Agency reported.
The South Korean news service reported that loudspeakers started blasting the updates into North Korea shortly after the soldier's defection under a hail of gunfire on Nov. 13. The soldier, 24, known only by his family name of Oh, sped away from his military unit in a jeep and into South Korea through the truce village of Panmunjom.
South Korean officials told Yonhap that the broadcast gives current updates on Oh "in great detail." Oh was shot several times by North Korean soldiers as he tried to escape but survived and is currently being treated as South Korean physicians, the news agency said.
In Sunday's broadcast, South Korea noted the dire health conditions of the North Korea Army.
"The nutritive conditions of the North Korean soldier who recently defected through the Panmunjom were unveiled," an official told Yonhap.
Physicians discovered parasitic worms inside Oh while operating on him for gunshot wounds, along with finding that he had a chronic liver infection, CNN reported. One of the parasites was more than 10-inches long and another was more commonly found in dogs, the broadcaster said.
"In my 20 years as a surgeon, I have only seen something like this in a medical textbook," Lee Cook-Jong, Oh's surgeon, told reporters on Nov. 15, according to CNN.
North Korea has denounced the South Korea's military broadcasting operation for its potential to provoke defections by its front-line soldiers. South Korea started the broadcast in January of last year in retaliation for North Korea's fourth nuclear test, Yonhap reported.
South Korea military officials told the news agency that the broadcasts are loud enough to be heard by North Koreans 12.5 miles away from the border.
An intelligence source told Yonhap that North Korea replaced its entire security force at the station, totaling from 35 to 40, after the incident, according to Fox News.