Koreas exchange final list for family reunion
AFP
October 9, 2015, 5:27 am
Seoul (AFP) - North and South Korea on Thursday exchanged the final list of people who will take part in a rare reunion for families separated for decades by the 1950-53 Korean War.
Red Cross officials from both sides exchanged the list of 97 North Koreans and 90 South Koreans who will meet their long-lost relatives, said Seoul's unification ministry in charge of cross-border affairs.
The reunion -- only the second such event in the last five years -- is scheduled to be held in the North's Mount Kumgang resort from October 20 to 6.
The group of North Koreans will meet with their South Korean relatives from October 20 to 22, before the chosen southerners meet with their own relatives from the North from October 24 to 26.
The oldest participants are two 98-year-old South Korean men who have a daughter and a son each in the North.
The family reunion was agreed in August during high-level talks between the two Koreas aimed at defusing military tension on the border.
But there are concerns that Pyongyang may still cancel at the last minute -- as it has done in the past.
The North has a long track record of manipulating the divided families issue for political purposes, refusing proposals for regular reunions and cancelling scheduled events over some perceived slight.
Late September, the North threatened to cancel the reunion, citing "reckless" remarks by South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme and human rights record.
Millions of people were separated during the Korean War that sealed the division between the two countries.
Most died without having a chance to see or hear from their families on the other side of the border, across which all civilian communication is banned.
About 66,000 South Koreans -- many of them in their 80s or 90s -- are on the waiting list for an eventual reunion, but only a very limited number can be chosen each time.
