SEOUL
A South Korean crisis management team was trying to track down an Army sergeant Sunday, after the 22-year-old conscript shot five fellow front-line unit members dead and injured seven more.
The country’s defense ministry set up the team after the shooting rampage Saturday evening in the eastern town of Goseong in Gangwon Province, near the tense border with North Korea.
Officials quickly dismissed the possibility of North Korean involvement, and a defense ministry spokesperson issued an apology Sunday.
“We pray that the soldiers who died from this unexpected accident rest in peace and offer our deep condolences to the families of those killed and injured. We will do all we can do to support them,” spokesperson Kim Min-seok told reporters.
With the seven wounded receiving treatment at local hospitals, attention turned to the whereabouts of the sergeant on the run, surnamed Lim.
Having joined the Army in 2012, the shooting came as Lim was just three months away from completing his military service, which is mandatory for all able-bodied South Korean men.
But Lim was known to have been troubled, and was described by one officer as having “difficulties in adapting to military life,” according to local news agency Yonhap.
Further reports in South Korean media claimed Lim was on a ‘watch-list’ but that his status had been downgraded late last year, allowing him to take his front-line unit position.
Still, little is known about what motivated him to open fire near an outpost of his own 22nd Infantry Division after finishing his guard duty at around 8:00 p.m. Saturday.
The Army was investigating the explosion of a grenade just before the shooting rampage – Lim had escaped with around 60 rounds of ammunition and an additional grenade.
The incident was not without precedent, raising questions about the pressures of South Korean military life - a Marine Corps corporal killed four soldiers from a seaside unit in 2011.
In 2005, an army private claimed eight lives after setting off a grenade and opening fire, also near the North Korean border.
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