North Korean soldiers shot at and injured their colleague while he defected to South Korea by crossing the border on Monday, Reuters reported. He was taken to hospital after South Korean forces heard gunshots and found him just 50 metres from the heavily guarded border in the border village of Panmunjom, Yonhap news agency reported.

He was wounded in his shoulder and elbow.

According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the soldier crossed from the North Korean guard post and moved towards Freedom Post, a building metres into the border on the South Korean side. The Joint Security Area, where the soldier crossed the border, is the only part of the demilitarised zone where the security forces of both countries stand face-to-face.

“The defector was transferred to hospital in a helicopter of the United Nations Command, and there was no exchange of fire with our side,” a ministry official told Reuters. “Since it was an area exposed to the North, we had to crawl toward there to get him out.”

Hundreds of North Koreans defect to the South every year, but doing so through the border area is unusual. This is the fourth defection by a North Korean soldier through the demilitarised zone in the last three years, the BBC reported.