For the longest time, it seemed as if (nearly) every story we heard about alleged unauthorized border crossings on the Korean Peninsula had one thing in common. They involved people from North Korea making a break for it and attempting to seek refugee in South Korea, an American ally. But recently, we've seen a handful of stories where the opposite turned out to be true. There was an American soldier who illegally crossed over to the North, though he was later released and charged with desertion. Now another, similarly curious report has come to us from the same region. A person described as a "North Korean defector" stole a bus earlier this week and rammed into a barricade separating the two countries. The man was detained, with few other details being provided by authorities. But this raises the question of why anyone would want to break into North Korea. (NBC News)

A North Korean defector living in South Korea was detained Tuesday after ramming a stolen bus into a barricade on a bridge near the heavily militarized border, in an apparent attempt to get back to the North, Yonhap news agency reported.

The incident took place around 1:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. Monday ET) at the Tongil Bridge in Paju, northwest of the capital, Seoul, after the man ignored warnings from soldiers guarding the bridge and attempted to drive through, Yonhap said, citing city police.

Paju police referred queries on the incident to provincial police authorities. The northern Gyeonggi police agency could not be reached for comment.

The unusual nature of this attempted defection shouldn't be understated. According to the Seoul Unification Ministry, since 2012, more than 24,000 people have fled to the South from North Korea. By comparison, they could only confirm roughly 30 traveling in the other direction. So has something changed in North Korea recently making it a more attractive place to live?

That seems unlikely in the extreme. North Korea remains a closeted hermit nation held in the iron grip of Kim Jong-un and his family. It's a terrible place to live where the government locks up massive numbers of people in isolated work camps and neighbors rat out their own friends and family to avoid being prosecuted themselves. Starvation is a constant threat in that country, with medical care and other critical social services being in short supply unless you are a member in good standing with the ruling party. Why would anyone be willing to go back there?

According to South Korean officials, the reasons remain complicated. Some people no doubt simply worry about the family members they left behind and want to know what has become of them. Others simply have a difficult time adapting to life in their new nation, being unused to both the freedoms and responsibilities that living in an open society entails. Social rights advocates regularly complain of the treatment that such migrants receive when seeking refuge in the South.

Many of these questions might have eventually been answered if a longer-term cooling of diplomatic tensions had been achieved, something that Donald Trump sought to do but eventually walked away from. For now, this is one of those mysteries that may defy any easy answers or explanations. But North Korea is now a fully engaged partner in the new Axis of Evil, so the situation bears monitoring closely.