A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea early on Thursday, a South Korean defence ministry official said.
It is the second known defection from the North in about five weeks.
The low-ranking North Korean soldier defected across the heavily militarised border between North and South Korea about 8:04am local time (2304 GMT Wednesday) and no shots were fired, the official said.
Another North Korean soldier suffered critical gunshot wounds during a defection dash across the border on November 13.
South Korean guards fired about 20 warning shots at North Korean troops searching for a defector, who fled across the heavily militarised border between the two countries on Thursday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.
