Tears, farewell hugs end 1st round of Korean reunions

SEOUL (AP) — As her two North Korean daughters, both in their 70s, wailed outside her bus, 99-year-old Han Shin-ja pounded the windows from inside in despair, moving her lips to say ”don’t cry” and “farewell.”

As her bus left for South Korea on Wednesday, Han’s daughters chased the moving vehicle before being stopped by a North Korean official, a predictable but no less a heart-wrenching scene.

Han’s family was among hundreds of elderly Koreans who tearfully said their final goodbyes at the end of the first round of rare reunions between relatives separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

About 200 South Koreans returned home after the end of three days of meetings with North Korean relatives at the North’s Diamond Mountain resort. Another 337 South Koreans will participate in a second round of reunions from Friday to Sunday.

The first set of meetings created heart- wrenching images of relatives weeping, embracing and caressing each other in a rush of emotions. Many of the South Korean participants were war refugees who reunited with the siblings or infant children they left behind, many of whom are now into their 70s.

At their final lunch meeting on Wednesday, 91-year-old Lee Ki-soon seemed lost for words as he quietly drank a glass of “soju,” a vodka-like alcohol loved in both Koreas, with his 75-year-old North Korean son, according to pool reports.

An Jong Sun, a 70-year-old North Korean, carefully fed her 100-year-old South Korean father food.

Nearby, Ri Chol, a 61-year-old North Korean, quietly wept as he grasped the hands of a 93-year-old South Korean grandmother he was only just getting to know.

“Don’t cry, Chol,” Kwon Seok, also in tears, told her grandson.