SEOUL // South Korean troops were engaged in a shoot-out on Sunday with a conscript soldier who had killed five comrades in a grenade and gun attack the previous night, local media reported.
The soldier opened fire on troops after they tracked him down near a school in the Goseong region, close to the border with North Korea, Yonhap Television News (YTN) said.
A platoon leader was wounded in the arm during the shoot-out, and ‘shoot to kill’ orders were given unless the fugitive soldier surrenders, YTN reported, citing military officials.
Yonhap news agency reported that the soldier had been surrounded and his parents were taken to the site, where his mother pleaded with him to surrender.
The soldier, identified as Sergeant Lim, shot dead five of his fellow unit members and wounded seven others late on Saturday at an outpost in the base at Goseong county, a mountainous region that borders the North on the eastern coast of the peninsula.
“Sergeant Lim was to be discharged three months later on September 16,” Yonhap reported. “He was returning after completing his day shift duty.”
The defence ministry apologised to the nation over the shooting. The military has been criticised before for lax discipline in some units and failure to prevent previous cases where soldiers, suffering personal problems, have shot fellow soldiers.
* Reuters
