Reunions bring tears, joy for separated Korean families
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ABOUT 90 families from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and South Korea wept and embraced yesterday as the neighbors held their first reunion event in three years for relatives wrenched apart by the Korean War for more than six decades.
The brief reunions are set to total just 11 hours over the next three days in the DPRK’s tourist resort of Mount Kumgang after the neighbors renewed exchanges this year following a standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.
DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to the reunion events at a summit in April.
About 330 South Koreans from 89 families, many in wheelchairs, embraced 185 separated relatives from the DPRK with tears, joy and disbelief. Some struggled to recognize family not glimpsed in more than 60 years.
“How are you so old?” Kim Dal-in, 92, asked his sister, Yu Dok, after gazing at her briefly in silence.
“I’ve lived this long to meet you,” replied the 85-year-old, wiping away tears as she clasped a photograph of her brother in his youth.
Siblings Kim Gyong Sil, 72 and Gyong Yong, 71, wearing the traditional hanbok dress, colored pale violet, stood nervously staring at the entrance, awaiting their 99-year-old mother Han Shin-ja. They could not speak for minutes, wailed loudly and rubbed their cheeks and hands.
“When I fled home in the war,” Han said, faltering as she choked with emotion and left her sentence incomplete.
The families are victims of a decades-long political gridlock since the 1950-53 war ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty, with ties increasingly strained as the DPRK rapidly stepped up its weapons programs.
More than 57,000 South Korean survivors have registered for the family reunions, which usually end in painful farewells.
For years, Seoul has called for regular meetings between separated families, including the use of video conferences, but the program often fell victim to fragile ties.
At his historic June summit with United States President Donald Trump in June, Kim Jong Un pledged to abandon his country’s nuclear programs if Washington provided security guarantees, but the two sides have since struggled to agree on how to reach that goal.
The reunions should be scaled up sharply, held regularly, and include exchanges of visits and letters, said Moon, himself a member of a separated family from the DPRK’s eastern port city of Hungnam.
“It is a shame for both governments that many of the families have passed away without knowing whether their lost relatives were alive,” he told presidential secretaries at a meeting. “Expanding and accelerating family reunions is a top priority.”
Ninety-three families from both sides of the border had been initially due to hold a three-day gathering from yesterday, but four South Korean members canceled at the last minute because of poor health, the Red Cross said.
From Thursday, 88 more groups of relatives will meet, comprised of 469 individuals from South Korea and 128 from the DPRK, Seoul’s Unification Ministry says.
For Lee Jong-shik, 81, yesterday’s reunion was a hard-won second chance to track down his younger brother, Ri Chong Song, after the failure of a 2009 effort when a different individual showed up, to the dismay of the family from South Korea.
“I tried so hard, too, searching for you for seven years,” Ri told his brother.
The participants included the families of a prisoner of war and five people abducted by DPRK authorities during the conflict, though the six South Koreans they had hoped to meet had died.
The reunions, which began in 1985, can be a traumatic experience, say survivors, who know they are unlikely to see their relatives again, since many are 80 or older and first-timers typically get priority for visits.
About 132,600 individuals were listed as separated families by the end of July. Of the 57,000 survivors, 41.2 percent are in their 80s and 21.4 percent in their 90s, government data show.
The oldest South Korean participant is 101-year-old Baek Seong-gyu, who was reunited with his daughter-in-law and granddaughter.
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