Travis King's Family Speak Out on North Korea Defection

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Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property insurance market, local and national politics. She has previously extensively covered U.S. and European politics. Giulia joined Newsweek in 2022 from CGTN Europe and had previously worked at the European Central Bank. She is a graduate in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University and holds a Bachelor's degree in Politics and International Relations from Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy. She speaks English, Italian, and a little French and Spanish. You can get in touch with Giulia by emailing: g.carbonaro@newsweek.com.

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The family of Travis King, the defecting U.S. soldier who crossed the border into North Korea earlier this month, has called for the U.S. government to do more to bring the 23-year-old man home.

Talking to NBC News on Wednesday, King's sister Jaqueda Gates said that nobody in the family expected the soldier to bolt to North Korea, especially as he had told her he was excited to return to the U.S.

"This is crazy, I was just talking to him, literally 48 hours ago [before he crossed into North Korea], it was crazy," Gates told the news channel. "My brother, he's not the type to get into trouble like that. It all just sounds made up."

South Korea North Korea border
Visitors walk past a military fence at Imjingak peace park in the border city of Paju, South Korea, on July 19, 2023. Travis King, a U.S. soldier who served around two months in a South... JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images

King, who had served as a cavalry scout in the regular army since January 2021, spent between May 4 and July 10 of this year in a South Korean prison after being involved in an altercation with two Korean nationals and resisting apprehension, per The Messenger which cited South Korean law enforcement.

After his release, on July 17, he was supposed to board a flight back to the U.S. and then head to Fort Bliss in Texas, where he was expected to face disciplinary actions over his confrontation with South Korean police.

But King, who wasn't in custody at the time he was at the Incheon International Airport, did not board the plane. Instead, he headed to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and crossed the border to North Korea—a move that his family regards as unexplainable.

His fate remains uncertain, as the U.S. has no diplomatic ties with North Korea.

"The days are getting longer, nights are worse," Gates told NBC. "All I think about is what he can be doing." The 27-year-old woman and King's family appealed to the U.S. government to bring her brother back home.

"At the end of the day, I just feel like it should be no men left behind," Gates said. "When he went to the Army to fight for America, America should fight for him, fight for him to come home," Myron Gates, King's uncle, told NBC.

The Biden administration is trying to determine King's location and condition, as previously reported by The New York Times. On Monday, U.S. officials said they had no new communication on King between the United Nations and North Korea since last week.

"I saw reports about contact between the UN Command and North Korea," State Department spokesperson Matt Miller told the press on Monday. "It is my understanding that there has been no new communication since last week, communications that happened in the early days. I think the reports may have resulted from a misinterpretation of the UN command's original statement."

U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson John Kirby previously said that the administration is "doing everything we can" to "see him safely and quickly returned to the United States and to his family."

Newsweek has contacted the U.S. Department of Defense for comment by email on Thursday.

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About the writer

Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property insurance market, local and national politics. She has previously extensively covered U.S. and European politics. Giulia joined Newsweek in 2022 from CGTN Europe and had previously worked at the European Central Bank. She is a graduate in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University and holds a Bachelor's degree in Politics and International Relations from Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy. She speaks English, Italian, and a little French and Spanish. You can get in touch with Giulia by emailing: g.carbonaro@newsweek.com.

Writers Page

Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property ... Read more