Updated

South Korea says North Korean soldiers shot at and injured a fellow soldier who was crossing a border village to defect to the South.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff says in a statement the North Korean soldier was being taken to a hospital after crossing the border village of Panmunjom on Monday.

It's rare for a North Korean soldier to defect via Panmunjom and be shot by fellow North Korean soldiers.

It wasn't known how serious the soldier's injury was.

About 30,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, but most of them travel through China.