SEOUL: Eighty-one year old Lee Chun Woo thought his sister in North Korea was dead. The last time he saw her was in 1943…
SEOUL: Eighty-one year old Lee Chun Woo thought his sister in North Korea was dead. The last time he saw her was in 1943 before the division of the Korean peninsula. His mother also believed she was dead, so they never thought of trying to find her.
“I witnessed the Korean War, and so many people died then. My father also died of a disease during the chaos of the Korean War,“ said Lee. “So we assumed she must have died too.”
But through other South Koreans who had already made contact with their family members in North Korea, Lee found out in 2013 that his sister was alive and wanted to meet him.
And so, for the first time, he applied for government-organised reunions.
It is not easy to be selected as a participant for the reunions because there are still more than 50,000 people waiting for their turn. Since 1988, 132,000 South Koreans have registered for the programme – and more than half of them have since died.
But Lee’s turn eventually came in 2015, when his sister in North Korea applied to take part in the reunion from the North Korean side.
“She was sent to my relatives in North Korea before the Korean War. I never thought that would be the last time I would see her,” said Lee.
Although decades had passed, he said he recognised her immediately because she resembled their mother.
Very soon, they were talking about their childhood days when they lived together – except he was now no longer the five-year-old boy his sister used to carry around on her back.
As for his sister – who was 11 years old then – she was now old and suffering from dementia.
“I went to the reunion with my other younger sister. But she didn’t seem to remember her and just kept hugging me,” he said.
Lee knows he will never see his sister again. But as South Korea prepares for another government-organised reunion with North Korea, the emotions he felt three years ago are coming back.
“It was so good to see her. I really miss her,“ he said.
The reunions are an emotional event for all South Koreans, after millions of Koreans were separated following the three-year Korean War that ended in 1950.
An armistice was signed to technically end the conflict, but a permanent peace treaty was never signed.
