For Korea’s divided families, the time for reunions is running out
After 68 years of separation, the number of Korean families with members on both sides of the border is dwindling fast. And as they die out, so too does the power of Kim Jong-un’s mantra ‘one blood, one people’
When war between the two Koreas broke out in 1950, Jeon Ki-young gathered everything he could carry and fled south from his home in Pyongyang. As the eldest son of a wealthy landowner, Jeon was tasked with helping his entire family, including his siblings and grandparents, make the journey safely.
Through the chaos and bloodshed, Jeon and his family reached the Hangang river, which runs through the middle of Seoul, the modern South Korean capital, only to find its 1,005-metre-long bridge had been bombed to prevent an invasion by North Korean troops. Luckily, unlike most refugees, Jeon and his family were able to swim and so narrowly escaped the iron curtain. Unfortunately, one member of Jeon’s family did not make the journey. “His mother was still in Pyongyang,” explains Kim Seo-yeon, Jeon’s granddaughter, 28.
Jeon assumed he would return north and be reunited with his mother in a matter of days. But even after the two Koreas reached an armistice agreement in 1953, they remained separated by the 38th parallel. “She continued to live in the North after the war,” Kim says.
In the 1980s and 1990s, when inter-Korean family reunions became possible, Jeon grew hopeful. “He applied to meet her again, but the opportunity was not given to every person,” Kim says.
Hang on, what language is Kim Jong-un speaking?
Jeon never did get to see his mother again. He has since died, leaving his granddaughter and her family as the only ones to tell his story and, in doing so, invoke the memory of a once-unified Korea.