South Korea detains boat carrying suspected North Korean defectors

South Korean authorities on Tuesday detained a North Korean boat carrying people believed to be seeking to defect from the isolated country, the military said.
The small, wooden vessel was stopped off South Korea’s eastern city of Sokcho after being spotted near the Northern Limit Line, the de facto sea boundary between the two Koreas, early on Tuesday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The military did not disclose how many people were aboard, but Yonhap news agency said four North Koreans were on the vessel and had expressed their intent to defect.
It is the second known case of North Koreans crossing the sea border to seek defection in recent months, after nine people crossed the western sea boundary on a fishing boat in May.