By Kim Ji-soo

Four of the 31 North Koreans — 11 men and 20 women — who drifted into South Korean waters last month near Yeonpyeong Island in the West Sea have said they want to remain in the South, the Ministry of Unification said Thursday.

Initially all of them had expressed their wish to return to the North. With the four having changed their minds, the ministry said it will repatriate the remaining 27 overland via the truce village of Panmunjeom today.

A government source speaking on condition of anonymity said two women and two men wanted to defect.

North Korea watchers speculated that the defections would further cast a dark cloud on chilly inter-Korean relations.

The South will also return the boat in which they arrived to the North across the western sea border.

The ministry also notified the North, through Red Cross channels, that the North Koreans would be going home.

The group arrived aboard a wooden fishing boat on Feb. 5. The group was spotted through the fog by South Korean military personnel and towed to the western port city of Incheon. After undergoing questioning by South Korean officials, the North Koreans were to be repatriated this week.

The boat departed from the North's port city of Nampo, located on the west coast some 60 kilometers from Pyongyang.

Their arrival initially raised the possibility that the group might herald an imminent flood of North Korean "boat people," as the vessel managed to slip across the tense maritime border. The border has been a flashpoint between the two Koreas since the Korean War (1950-1953). Last March, a North Korean torpedo sank the South Korean frigate Cheonan in the West Sea, killing 46 of the sailors onboard. Then in November, the North shelled Yeonpyeong Island near the western maritime boarder, killing two civilians and two soldiers.

The number of North Korean defectors to the South has continued to increase since the late 1990s — as of November last year, the number surpassed the 20,000 mark.