This file photo, taken Sept. 8, 2022, shows an official at the Korean Red Cross checking a collection of video messages by South Korean families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. The video letters were produced for delivery to the separated families’ kin in North Korea. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — More than 2,200 South Koreans died in the first eight months of this year without having a chance to reunite with their family members in North Korea after being separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, government data showed Thursday.
A total of 2,226 people passed away in the January-August period among around 133,700 applicants who had registered with the government for family reunion events, according to the data from the unification ministry.
The number of surviving people came to 40,408 as of end-August, with 67 percent of the total aged 80 or older, the data showed.
State-arranged family reunion events have been suspended amid frosty inter-Korean relations. Since the first inter-Korean summit in 2000, the two Koreas have held 21 rounds of face-to-face family reunions, including the latest one in August 2018.
The government held a ceremony to mark Separated Families Day on Wednesday for the first time, since a law designating Aug. 13 on the lunar calendar as a commemorative day for divided families went into effect earlier this year.
The date was selected to reflect separated families’ wishes, as many of them want to reunite with their kin in the North on the occasion of the Chuseok fall harvest holiday, which falls on Aug. 15 on the lunar calendar and is one of the country’s two biggest traditional holidays.
On the eve of the Chuseok holiday in September 2022, then Unification Minister Kwon Young-se proposed talks with North Korea to discuss the issue of families torn by the war. But Pyongyang has not responded to Seoul’s offer.
The two Koreas remain technically at war, as the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
(Yonhap)
