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SEOUL, Dec. 21 (UPI) — More than 24,000 video messages have been recorded by separated families hoping to reach relatives in North Korea since 2005 — but almost none have been delivered, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said on Tuesday.
The video letters were created in conjunction with the Red Cross, with more than 1,000 new ones added this year, the ministry said in a statement. But North Korea has shown little interest in receiving them — just 40 video messages have ever been exchanged between North and South, according to the Red Cross.
Seoul has long pushed to hold reunions for family members separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, but face-to-face meetings have only been held sporadically since 2000, with the last one taking place in August 2018 during a period of diplomatic engagement.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to the exchange of video messages as “a matter of priority” during their summit in Pyongyang in September 2018, but relations have soured since then.
A man looks through binoculars across the Imjin River to North Korea over the Freedom Bridge that crosses the North Korea-South Korea border. File Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI
Time is not on the side of the family members who are still hoping to connect with their long-lost relatives. More than 82% of those who signed up with the Red Cross to participate in family reunions are over 80 years old, with a full 40% over 90.
Of the 133,000 people on the Red Cross list, only about 47,000 are still alive, according to data from the Unification Ministry, with more than 10 people dying per day on average.
The video letters, thousands of which can be viewed on a ministry website, are generally around 10 minutes long and contain basic information about the separated family member, memories of his or her hometown and a message to relatives in North Korea.
Unification Minister Lee In-young said last month that Seoul is hoping to resume family reunions for the upcoming Lunar New Year, which falls on Feb. 1, but Pyongyang has not responded to any efforts to reach out.
The South Korean government has also been compiling DNA information of separated family members to allow future generations to identify relatives in North Korea, with more than 25,000 people taking part so far, the ministry said.
“The production of video messages and DNA testing projects are the best measures considering the reality of North-South relations,” a ministry official said, according to news agency Yonhap.
“We have enough time to prepare for video reunions if North Korea responds to our calls this month as the two Koreas have an experience of holding such video-linked reunions in the past,” the official said.
Information for separated family members about their relatives in North Korea remains scarce. In a survey conducted earlier this month by the Unification Ministry, more than 82% of respondents said they didn’t know whether or not their relatives in the North were still alive.