Separated Koreans prepare for family reunions

Teenia Harmon
2:40 pm
9-25-09

After sixty years an eighty-year old South Korean woman, by the name of Lee Sun-ok, is going to see her siblings again. She fled North Korea in 1950 to escape the violence of the Korean conflict leaving behind her two younger sisters and brother. They are one of the 200 families that are to be temporarily reunited for six days starting Saturday. After the Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953, contact between the two nations has been very limited. “No mail, telephone or e-mail exchanges between ordinary citizens from the two Koreas” exist. To travel to the other side is practically impossible. But there are millions that have been separated from their families for half a century. The program to reunite the families began in 2000 but did not last long. Now they are starting up again, but for a very limited time. Some of the reunions will be live, but other will only be video reunions. The south wants to continue the program until all who signed up can at least find out the status of their family, but North Korea does not want to corporate.
This is an amazing story. I think it is very sad that these families have been separated for so long, but they are hopeful for their reunions. I cannot even imagine how hard it must have been to leave their homes and not even know how the rest of their families were for sixty years. You would live everyday wondering what became of them, or if they even survived. It is hard to imagine that, with all the communication technology that we have available to us; they could not talk to one another before this reunion program. I wish something more could be done to reunite these families, but those who get the chance to see their loved ones again are thrilled by it. Lee said that she could die happily after seeing her family again, and she is only one of the many people to whom this program means so much.