A North Korean defector who escaped the communist state with eight other members of his family last year has died, a fellow defector said through his YouTube channel Thursday.

Kim Yi-hyeok, who made headlines in May 2023 with the dramatic escape, died in a sea diving accident on Wednesday, another defector, Lee Cheol-eun, said on an online community.

"The tragic news of Kim Yi-hyeok, who left repressive North Korea and only had happy days to live in democratic South Korea, breaks my heart as a compatriot," Lee said, sending his condolences to Kim's family.

Kim was reported to be a well-off man in the North, operating three fishing boats at one point. But he escaped the North after disease control measures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, including restrictions on fishing boats, pushed his family to poverty.

After a couple of unsuccessful attempts, he managed to cross the Northern Limit Line on a wooden ship with his family, which included his wife and two kids, his brother and his wife, their mother, the younger Kim's mother-in-law and his brother-in-law.

Kim had appeared on TV broadcasts and said he had long been seeking to escape the North, before his children -- aged 3 and 5 at the time of the escape -- started school and were subject to brainwashing by the North Korean education that glorifies the Kim Jong-un regime.

In one episode he revealed, Kim said government officials raided his home and seized the rice that he bought. Upon his protest, the officials told him that "even the air you're breathing belongs to the party (the communist Workers' Party of Korea)."

He said that was the moment he decided to leave North Korea.