Anchor: The number of people who registered with the government as seeking family members in North Korea and have since died has topped 100-thousand. And with the current stalemate between the two Koreas, hope is dimming for the remaining families for a reunion with loved ones across the border.
Our Bae Joo-yon has more. 

Report: The Ministry of Unification said Thursday that as of the end of last year, 100-thousand-148 of the nation’s 134-thousand-516 registered separated family members had been confirmed deceased.

These are people from families that have been separated for decades, since the 1950-53 Korean War, which split the Korean Peninsula in half with a demilitarized zone strewn with barbed-wire fences and land mines.

Two new applications were filed last month, but with 292 deaths being reported in the same period, the number of surviving registrants slid to 34-thousand-368, with 32 percent of them older than 90. 

Compared with the end of 2024, the number of survivors saw a drop of two-thousand-573.

This comes as an average of 200 separated family members die each month and new applications from second- and third-generation families remain limited.

The ministry said last year’s exchanges related to separated families — reunions, correspondence or confirmations of survival — were limited to a single privately reported case in July. 

It was the first case of its kind to be reported in two and a half years. 

The case involved a North Korean escapee in their 50s reporting to the unification ministry that they’d heard news about their son in the North. 

The escapee, who entered South Korea in 2016, confirmed their son was still alive after meeting a North Korean acquaintance in China with help from a broker in April. 

It’s believed there are more such cases that the government has failed to identify due to underreporting.

Government-led reunions and confirmations of survival last took place in August 2018.

Late last month, the unification ministry said it would actively seek to confirm the whereabouts of North Koreans from separated families once inter-Korean relations make headway.

And amid North Korea’s continued development of its nuclear weapons program and Pyongyang’s resistance to Seoul’s conciliatory overtures, families are clinging to hope for another inter-Korean family reunion.
Bae Joo-yon, KBS World Radio News.