(3rd LD) Separated families cry and wail in reunions

(ATTN: ADDS pro-Pyongyang paper's report near bottom)
MOUNT KUMGANG, North Korea, Sept. 29 (Yonhap) -- Too old and weak to wail, Kim
Yu-jung, 100, silently wiped the tears showering her cheeks as her long-lost
daughter from the North ran to her and knelt by her wheelchair.
After a separation of 58 years, no words could describe their overwhelming emotions.

"Mother, are you alright? Can you hear me?" Ri, 75, asked, rubbing her face
against her mother's.
Tears ran down on mother's cheeks, and the daughter wiped them with her
handkerchief, saying, "Mother, don't cry."
The mother and daughter were among the 530 elderly Koreans from south and north
of the border who were reunited Tuesday at this mountain resort on the North's
east coast for the first time after being separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.
The three-day event -- the second round of reunions that allows 99 North Koreans
to meet with 431 of their kin from the South -- continues until Thursday. An
earlier event that ended Monday was held for 97 South Koreans seeking 233
relatives from the North.
Ri, then a 16-year-old high school student, disappeared in 1951, and she
allegedly served as a nurse for North Korean soldiers like many other young
girls, who did so either voluntarily or against their will during the war. Ri has
since graduated from a medical school and established a relatively wealthy family
in the North, and was selected by the North to see her mother, three sisters and
a brother from the South in this event.
"It's been 60 years, and I've been missing you even in my dreams," a tearful Ri
told her long-lost mother.
Her mother told a pool reporter, "I'm happy beyond words. It's so good I have
lived to see my daughter."
Ri Yun-yong, 74, sobbed and clutched his two younger brothers' hands whom he had
never seen after going to the war on behalf of his father in 1951. Ri, then 17
and the oldest of four sons, enlisted himself in the South Korean military in
place of his father, who had young children to take care of. With no news from
him thereafter, his family thought he had died in the battlefields. His late
father had long suffered from guilt.
"We thought you were no longer here in the world, but thank you brother, you have
survived!" one of his younger brothers, Chan-yeong, cried, holding his hands.
Ri sought to assure that he was well in the impoverished country, showing
pictures of his large family and 11 medals he earned from the government.
Apart from the tearful reunions, however, some had to leave the venue, the Mount
Kumgang Convention Center, with empty hearts after finding they were mismatched.
Ri Jong-seong, 77, had sought his brothers from the South, but the people who
came to the event -- Jong-hak, 77, and his younger brother Jong-su, 74 -- were
not his family members.
"From a distance, I thought he was not my brother," Lee Jong-su told a pool
reporter. "After a few minutes of conversations, I decided he was not my brother,
so I called the Red Cross people."
Officials of the Red Cross from Seoul, which arranged the event with its North
Korean counterpart, said such a case was not unprecedented, but rare, and added
they will try to find out how the location process went wrong.
The South Korean government later hosted a banquet for the families at the
convention center it has built at the foot of the mountain resort. Four more
reunion sessions are scheduled to be held until Thursday.
The family reunions, held for the first time in nearly two years, have become a
visible sign of improving inter-Korean relations after a long stalemate. Family
reunions were not held since the conservative Lee Myung-bak came to power in
Seoul last year, taking a tougher stance on the North's nuclear drive and halting
state aid to the impoverished North.
Pyongyang had boycotted dialogue and the reunion event until last month, when it
suddenly shifted to conciliatory diplomacy toward Seoul and Washington.
"Both the North and the South appeared to be sufficiently conscious of the impact
this event will bring about on inter-Korean relations," the Choson Sinbo, a
pro-Pyongyang newspaper based in Japan, said. North Korea gives credit to the
South Korean government, which has ordered involved officials to "not even think
about drinking" during the event to prevent any trouble, the report said.
The paper also warned against Seoul's "provocative" behavior, apparently
referring to recent remarks by top defense officials who suggested a quick strike
on the North's nuclear bases in the event of war.
For tens of thousands of separated families who were not chosen for the event,
the reunions aggravated their pain. Police said a 75-year-old man, who was
identified only by his family name of Lee, took his own life on Monday after he
failed to make the list of participants drawn up by a computer lottery.
More than 127,000 people in the South had signed up for the reunions after they
were regularized in 2000, but nearly a third of them have died due to old age.
The competition rate is about 1 to 800.
Police said Lee threw himself onto a railway as a train approached the Suwon
station, south of Seoul, Gyeonggi Province.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)