Separated Korean relatives reunite

South Korean Yang Chol-yong, 82, left, who was separated from his family in North Korea during the Korean War, meets his wife Woo Soon-ae, at a hotel in Pyongyang yesterday. PHOTO: REUTERS

Amid huge outpouring of emotion, 200 Koreans from either side of the divided peninsula's Cold War frontier, were reunited yesterday with relatives they have not seen for 50 years.

After a delay caused by fog at Pyongyang airport, a special flight took 100 mainly elderly South Koreans to the North Korean capital and brought back 100 people to meet relatives in the South.

The three-day reunion was the second organized by the two sides since a historic summit between their leaders in Pyongyang in June.

"Mother it's me, can you recognize me, it's your son," said 75-year-old Shin Dong-gil as he met his 100-year-old mother Yu Du-hee at the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang in front of South Korean television cameras.

The two hugged and Yu wept uncontrollably as Shin, who was forced into the communist North's army at the start of the 1950-53 Korean War, introduced his wife.

There were similar tearful scenes in the hotel dining room as other relatives met.

Yu one of eight South Koreans who made the trip to Pyongyang in a wheelchair. "I was so excited that I could not sleep at all last night," Yu said earlier as she waited for the plane in Seoul.

"I am happy that I have been able to live long enough to see my son again, not in a dream but in flesh and blood," she said.

The North Korean delegation arrived in Seoul five hours behind schedule because of the fog delay. But after their 50-year wait for news of long-lost relatives, the expectations were not diminished.

The relatives will have five meetings over the three days of the reunions. There will be three main gatherings, one lunch meeting and a farewell tomorrow.

The first reunions agreed at the summit were held in August. Another set of gatherings is to be held before the end of the year.

The South's President Kim Dae-jung and North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-il vowed at the summit to end the five decades of hostility since the division of the peninsula in 1945.

The reunions have been one of the most important successes of the rapprochement for ordinary people on each side of the border.

An 7.7 million South Koreans, including 1.2 million who fled hometowns in the North during the war, still have relatives in the communist state, but are unable to get news of them.

Bong Doo-wan, deputy head of the Red Cross, who led the South Korean delegation, which also included 51 officials and journalists, said the visits would strengthen moves to bring families in the two countries together.

He said in a statement: "We are leaving for the North, carrying warm feelings toward the relatives of separated families and the desire of 70 million people to see inter-Korean peace and reconciliation.

"I firmly believe this trip will help lay the foundation for free exchange of letters and reunions of separated families."

South Korea has given priority to elderly people, such as Yu, and held a computer lottery of the 90,000 people who applied to take part. The North chose many of its delegation from the elite of the communist state's society.