SEOUL, March 3 (Yonhap) -- Four of the 31 North Koreans who arrived in South Korea last month across the western sea border have expressed their wish to stay, officials said Thursday, a development likely to anger Pyongyang and further sour inter-Korean relations.

   On Feb. 5, 11 North Korean men and 20 women crossed the tense Yellow Sea border on a wooden fishing boat to arrive on Yeonpyeong Island, an island shelled by North Korea last November.

   North Korea soon demanded that all of them be repatriated quickly. The North Koreans also reportedly told the authorities here that they accidentally crossed the border and would like to go back.

   But the South Korean government said only 27 of them will be returned Friday through a border village, adding the Red Cross here has notified its North Korean counterpart of the plan in a message.

   "As a result of interrogation, four of the 31 North Koreans have expressed the intention to stay in the South," the Red Cross said in a statement released through the ministry.

   The arrival of the North Koreans came at a sensitive time because military officials from Seoul and Pyongyang were to hold their first dialogue since the North's deadly attack on Yeonpyeong.

   The talks broke down, prompting the North to vow not to hold any more military dialogue with the South. Tension on the peninsula further heightened when the United States and South Korea began their joint annual military exercises this week, an event Pyongyang denounces as a preparation to topple the communist regime.

   North Koreans wishing to defect after accidentally crossing the inter-Korean sea border are not rare. Last year, seven people stayed while another seven returned, according to the ministry.

   Defection is considered a sin punishable by death in North Korea. Despite harsh penalties, defections from the impoverished state have continued. Since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, more than 20,000 North Koreans have arrived in South Korea, mostly via China.

   There were no children among the latest batch of North Koreans who arrived here by boat, according to South Korean officials.

   They are believed to have left North Korea's western port city of Nampo, about 60 kilometers southwest of Pyongyang, according to military officials.

   samkim@yna.co.kr
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