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피터빈트

Hundreds of S. Koreans leave for N.K. for family reunions

By 송상호

Published : Oct. 24, 2015 - 10:38

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Hundreds of South Koreans left for North Korea on Saturday to meet with their loved ones in North Korea that they have not seen since the 1950-53 Korean War.

A group of 90 families or about 250 South Koreans were to arrive at a resort on Mount Geumgangsan on the North's east coast to have reunions with their North Korean relatives from Saturday to Monday.

The upcoming event follows the previous three-day reunion that involved another 96 families that ended Thursday at the scenic resort on the North's mountain, about a half-hour drive from Sokcho.

The family reunions, the first since February 2014, are the outcome of a landmark deal that South and North Korea reached on Aug. 25 to defuse military tension.

There are more than 66,000 South Korean family members separated by the Korean War, which ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving South and North Korea technically at war.

The issue warrants urgency as most of the surviving family members are in their 80s and older. About half of the estimated 129,700 South Koreans on the waiting list for the reunions have died.

As more people in the separated families have passed away, it is getting harder to find parent-child relations and husbands and wives. For the upcoming reunions, most of the separated families are looking to meet their siblings or close relatives.

Since the first inter-Korean summit in 2000, the two Koreas have held 19 rounds of face-to-face family reunion events involving only some 18,800 family members from both sides. (Yonhap)

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