Steph Solis, and Jane Onyanga-Omara

USA TODAY

LONDON — A North Korean diplomat stationed in the British capital has defected to South Korea with his family, South Korean authorities said Wednesday.

Seoul’s Unification Ministry named the diplomat as Thae Yong Ho.

Jeong Joon-hee, a spokesman for the ministry, told reporters that Thae is the highest-level North Korean official to have defected to the South.

Jeong said Thae was “sick and tired" of the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was worried about his children’s future and yearned for a liberal and democratic country, according to the Guardian.

The BBC said Thae was a deputy to the ambassador who was responsible for promoting the image of North Korea to Britons. It said that he lived in Britain for 10 years and disappeared several weeks ago.

The JoongAng Ilbo newspaper first reported that Thae was believed to have deserted his post at North Korea's embassy in Ealing, west London, with his family to seek asylum in another country.

The embassy tried to find him but said it failed, according to JoongAng Ilbo's source, who the paper said had in-depth knowledge of North Korea and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The reasons for his reported defection weren't immediately known.

Americans traveling to North Korea face serious risk of arrest, detention

Thae is the latest of several senior North Korean officials to defect. Earlier this year, a North Korean party official was reported by media to have defected from a job in Russia with his family. According to JoongAng Ilbo's source, that official fled due to pressure to find extra foreign currency sources for North Korea.

At the time, Kim was reportedly incensed by the defections and ordered diplomats’ families to return to Pyongyang, according to JoongAng Ilbo.

Thae's main mission was to inform Britons that North Korea's actions were misreported and misunderstood, the BBC reported.

"If the people in this country, or in America, knew that there is a country in the world, where there is a free education, free housing, free medical care, then they'd have second thoughts," Thae said in a speech, according to the broadcaster.

"That is the reason why the mass media creates all those shocking, terrifying stories about my country," he added.

John Nilsson-Wright, the head of the Asia program at the London-based think tank Chatham House, said western intelligence agencies would want to question Thae about Kim’s leadership and what happened to members of the previous government who media said were executed, the Guardian reported.

Last month, the United States put Kim and 22 other individuals and entities on the U.S. sanctions list for human rights abuses.

Pyongyang "continues to commit serious human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detention, forced labor, and torture," the State Department said in its announcement of the sanctions.

Solis reported from McLean, Va.