Koreans Reflect On Families Divided From The Korean War

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - JULY 12: 81 year-old Yoon Ilyoung sits in front of the pictures of himself taken in North Korea 70 years ago, in his appartment in Seoul, South Korea on July 12, 2018. His family fled to south before the Korean War occured in Korean peninsula in 1950, the communists led the Land Reforming Movement and confiscated landocracys' assets in the northern side of the 38th Parallel North. Yoon's family is one of the landocracys so that the family lost all the assets and was forced to move to highland. Yoon's hometown, Jangdan-gun is sited in the DMZ. It means the town is very closed to the border so that he can see the town anytime from the military observatory in South Korea. Though, as the area became a military zone with high tension the town has lost its scape that Yoon had in his memory, he said. After 68 years since the division between North and South Korea along the Korean Peninsula, around 20,000 Koreans have participated in face-to-face reunions with their families who were split up during the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. As both Koreas agreed to hold reunions in mid-August amidst easing tensions along the border, hopes for divided families meeting their loved ones are getting slimmer as most of the members are now in their late 80s and 90s and between 300 to 400 people on the reunification list reportedly die each month out of old age. Based on Seoul's Unification Ministry, over 75,000 of the 132,000 South Koreans who applied to attend the reunion have died while the last reunion was held in 2015 before being disrupted when relations turned sour between both sides. While South Korea hope for more reunions, analysts have said that North Korea sees the reunion events as an important diplomatic bargaining chip since the separation. (Photo by Woohae Cho/Getty Images)