The South Korean military crossed over to the northern side of the inter-Korean maritime border to help rescue a stranded North Korean vessel, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Sunday.

JCS later added that DPRK authorities towed the boat back to North Korea in accordance with the crews’ wishes to return home, hours after a South Korean navy vessel reportedly made the rare move to cross the maritime border to assist the stranded vessel.

“At around 2:16 p.m. today, our military detected an unknown vessel adrift around 200 kilometers (124 miles) east of Jejin port in the East Sea,