No exchange between Koreas' separated families since Feb. of last year

Separated families of South and North Korea bid each other goodbye after a government-arranged reunion held at the North-occupied part of Gangwon Province in this 2018 file photo. (Joint Press Corp.)

South Koreans with relatives in North Korea have not been in contact with their kin across the border for over a year, government data showed Tuesday, highlighting the increasingly worsening relations between Seoul and Pyongyang.

According to the Ministry of Unification, there has been no contact between the separated families of the Koreas at the civilian level since February of last year. This refers to individuals connecting with their relatives through a non-government broker, which must be reported to the government.

There has not been a government-arranged reunion since 2018, and there has been significantly less civilian-level contact due to deteriorating relations between the two Koreas and the travel restrictions induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Such civilian-level contact is made possible through civilian groups who help send letters or arrange meetings through countries that have formal relations with North Korea, such as China.

Both China and North Korea reopened their borders last year as the pandemic subsided, but government data shows that none of the separated families attempted to contact each other.

Inter-Korean relationships have become even more frosty in recent months, particularly with hardliner comments by the North's leader Kim Jong-un, and the sending of trash-filled balloons that have bombarded South Korea since late May. Police data showed Tuesday that the balloons from the North have been found across 3,359 locations across the country.

Last December, Kim directly said unification between the Koreas is no longer possible, and that the communist state's constitution should be changed to define South Korea as its "principal enemy."

An exchange between the separated families is a pressing issue as 66.9 percent of them are aged at least 80. In South Korea, 38,139 surviving people have applied for a reunion with their families as of June this year.

The 1950-53 Korean War, sparked by the North's invasion of the South, is presumed to have left hundreds of thousands of families separated. A 2005 report by Statistics Korea showed that there were 716,000 South Koreans with at least one family member in North Korea.

By Yoon Min-sik(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)