Time running out for two Koreas to hold family reunions
- 6 years ago
As mentioned earlier, it's been nearly three years since family reunions were last held by the two Koreas.
Cha Sang-mi reports on their significance and why it had been so difficult to hold these events more frequently.
When hostilities ended in the Korean War in 1953, the new militarized border separated parents from children, brothers from sisters and husbands from wives.
The first historic family reunion was held in August 2000... right after the first Inter-Korean summit on June 25th the same year.
Since then, the two Koreas have put together 19 reunions, the most recent in 2015, after which inter-Korean relations took a nosedive.
After three long years, there's finally one coming up from August 20th to the 26th.
The reunions held to date... have brought together a total of 19-thousand-771 individuals from South and North Korea, including the relatives that chaparoned them.
Pyongyang has turned down offers of reunions in the past when relations were bad. Many say that bringing families together should be treated as separate from politics, including Dr. Woo Jung-yep of the Sejong Institute.
But he also notes that paradoxically, the reunions are closely intertwined with the North Korean people's political prospects for the future.
"So even though we don't want family reunions directly linked to the political situation, this time, since there is much higher hope for the denuclearization of North Korea than before, I think that these kind of humanitarian issues can lead to a much better political situation in North Korea."
And the expert says these opportunities should be organized more often.
That's because time is running out.
Originally, there were 1-hundred-and-32-thousand South Koreans registered as having family in the North. But as of last month, fewer than half of them were still alive.
Among the ones who were, nearly 63 percent were over 80 years old; and if you include those in their seventies, the very elderly represent 85 percent of the total.
Politics has kept them apart from their families for decades already.
With every day that goes by, the chances they'll ever embrace their relatives again get smaller and smaller.
Cha Sang-mi, Arirang News.
Cha Sang-mi reports on their significance and why it had been so difficult to hold these events more frequently.
When hostilities ended in the Korean War in 1953, the new militarized border separated parents from children, brothers from sisters and husbands from wives.
The first historic family reunion was held in August 2000... right after the first Inter-Korean summit on June 25th the same year.
Since then, the two Koreas have put together 19 reunions, the most recent in 2015, after which inter-Korean relations took a nosedive.
After three long years, there's finally one coming up from August 20th to the 26th.
The reunions held to date... have brought together a total of 19-thousand-771 individuals from South and North Korea, including the relatives that chaparoned them.
Pyongyang has turned down offers of reunions in the past when relations were bad. Many say that bringing families together should be treated as separate from politics, including Dr. Woo Jung-yep of the Sejong Institute.
But he also notes that paradoxically, the reunions are closely intertwined with the North Korean people's political prospects for the future.
"So even though we don't want family reunions directly linked to the political situation, this time, since there is much higher hope for the denuclearization of North Korea than before, I think that these kind of humanitarian issues can lead to a much better political situation in North Korea."
And the expert says these opportunities should be organized more often.
That's because time is running out.
Originally, there were 1-hundred-and-32-thousand South Koreans registered as having family in the North. But as of last month, fewer than half of them were still alive.
Among the ones who were, nearly 63 percent were over 80 years old; and if you include those in their seventies, the very elderly represent 85 percent of the total.
Politics has kept them apart from their families for decades already.
With every day that goes by, the chances they'll ever embrace their relatives again get smaller and smaller.
Cha Sang-mi, Arirang News.