Two North Korean men swam across the Yellow Sea border to defect to South Korea, a rare way of fleeing the hunger-stricken communist nation, government sources here said Thursday.

South Korean marines on guard duty spotted them reaching Gyodong Island, just south of the Northern Limit Line, at around 4 a.m. Thursday, according to the sources. The island is about 2.5 kilometers away from the North’s closest western coast.

The two, one in his 50s and his twenty-something son, immediately expressed their desire to defect to the South.

“The unarmed men in casual clothes are presumed to be civilians, though a further probe is needed to learn exactly who they are,” a source said, asking not to be named. (Yonhap)