North Korea is currently holding a US soldier that made an authorised journey into the country from South Korea, the US military has confirmed.

The unexpected crossing comes during a particularly volatile period between the US and North Korea after a US nuclear missile submarine arrived in the South Korean port of Busan, angering the North.

The US instructs its citizens not to go to North Korea, known for human rights atrocities and major restrictions on freedom of speech.

Here we take a look at everything we know about Travis King’s crossing into North Korea.

Travis King, 23, is a Private 2nd Class in the US military and has been in the Army since January 2021.

READ MORE US soldier, 23, arrested in North Korea pictured as mom speaks out on her son

Travis King was an Army private facing disciplinary charges

He is a cavalry scout – a reconnaissance specialist – originally assigned to an element of the army’s 1st Armoured Division on a rotation with the US military in South Korea.

According to the Associated Press, he was facing disciplinary action for assault charges. He had been held in a South Korean prison for over a month, and was facing additional military punishment when he returned home.

A week ago, he was released to an army base in South Korea called Camp Humphreys, where he would be processed and taken back to the US.

He disappeared just before being taken back to the US

Travis crossed from South to North Korea while on a border tour of Panmunjom, in the area of land between North and South Korea.

While he was facing disciplinary action, he was reportedly not in custody and was therefore not escorted to the airport where he was due to board a plane from Incheon Airport to fly home to Fort Bliss, Texas on July 10.

He disappeared from the airport and made his way to the border crossing, roughly 54km (34 miles) away. An eyewitness on the same border tour described hearing the soldier laughing loudly before making a run.

The United Nations Command, which operates the DMZ, said it believed the soldier was now in custody of the North.

A defence official said the soldier had “wilfully” crossed the border, while US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Pentagon’s main concern is for the soldier’s welfare.

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Travis’ journey into North Korea appears to have been pre-planned

While Travis entering North Korea has not yet been confirmed as a defection, Mr Austin confirmed the crossing was deliberate.

The host of the North Korea News podcast, Jacco Zwetsloot, who worked for a tour company in 2012 that took US soldiers to the JSA, said there is “no way this person could escape from the airport one day and book on to one of these tours the next”.

He added it usually takes three days to be authorised to go on one of these trips, and requires you to submit your passport number and military ID to the UN Command, which operates the area.

He said: “When I was leading the tours, we had to change the turnaround time from 48 to 72 hours because there were too many mistakes.”

The tours have also become more limited since the pandemic, meaning research and planning would have been necessary to book his place.

His passage into North Korea comes at a highly sensitive time for the US

Travis’ detention by North Korea has come at an incredibly difficult time for the Joe Biden administration.

The incident came on the day that a US nuclear missile submarine arrived in the South Korean port of Busan, in a visible demonstration of US military strength that angered the North Koreans.

This move was taken in response to over a hundred North Korean missile tests, and just hours after Mr King’s detention, Kim Jong-un is believed to have launched a ballistic missile in the direction of the Sea of Japan, or East Sea, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Alluding to developments this week, Dr Edward Howell, a Korean peninsula expert at the University of Oxford, said: “Pyongyang’s hostility towards the US is anything but abating. The soldier’s defection places the Biden administration under immense pressure, as Biden has sought to strengthen his alliance with South Korea (and vice versa).

“Crucially, the Kim regime now has leverage: firstly, to make North Korea a priority item for the Biden administration; secondly, and relatedly, for Kim to try and gain some of his demands met, not least recognition as a de facto nuclear state.”

Travis’ intentions, and his future, remain unclear

While some have described Travis’ crossing of the border as a defection, it is not confirmed that this was his intention.

His mother Claudine Gates, speaking for the first time since the soldier’s arrest, said: “I’m so proud of him. I just want him to come home, come back to America.”

The mother, who lives in Racine, Wisconsin, insisted she could never envision her son fleeing and crossing the border into North Korea on purpose, adding: “I can’t see Travis doing anything like that.”

In a briefing today Mr Austin said: “There’s a lot that we’re still trying to learn. We believe that he is in (North Korean) custody and so we’re closely monitoring and investigating the situation and working to notify the soldier’s next of kin.”

US prisoners are known to be treated brutally in North Korean prisons.

In 2018, the North released an American college student, Otto Warmbier, who had been imprisoned for stealing a hotel sign. He returned to the US in a vegetative state, and later died.

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