South Korea's defense ministry said Monday the person that crossed the eastern inter-Korean border into North Korea over the weekend is presumed to be a North Korean defector.

The ministry's statement came amid reports the man appears to be the one who crossed a barbed wire fence on the heavily fortified border to enter the South in November 2020.

"Regarding the border crossing, the authorities presume the person is a North Korean defector and are in the process of verifying related facts," the ministry said in a statement.

On Saturday night, the person raced across the border area that is under the supervision of the South Korean Army's 22nd Division, in what is being decried as another security failure.

The North Korean defector in question also used a similar eastern front-line route to reach the South.

The latest incident came in spite of the South Korean military's pledge to overhaul its border defense system with stronger surveillance equipment to forestall any security lapses in the wake of earlier border breaches. (Yonhap)