Relatives distraught as North axes reunions

NAMYANGJU, SOUTH KOREA: Chang Choon didn’t get much sleep as he prepared to travel to North Korea this week to see his brother and sister for the first time in 62 years.

But the anticipation of what he called the wish of a lifetime was shattered after Pyongyang abruptly cancelled planned reunions for families separated by the 1950-1953 Korean War.

‘‘My wish to meet them for the first time in 62 years has burst like a bubble,’’ Mr Chang, 81, said yesterday.

He is one of hundreds of South Koreans who planned to visit North Korea’s scenic Diamond Mountain to meet long-separated relatives in what would have been the first such family reunion programme between the neighbouring countries in three years.

Millions of families have been separated since the war ended with an armistice, and not a peace treaty. The reunions are a highly emotional event as most people who apply to take part are in their 70s or older and eager to see their loved ones before they die.

Most have had no word on whether their relatives are still alive as their governments prohibit ordinary citizens from exchanging letters, calls and emails.

But the two Koreas agreed last month to resume the reunion programme amid signs that their animosities were easing following springtime threats of war. But the plan fizzed on Saturday when the North announced it would indefinitely postpone the reunions because of Seoul’s alleged ‘‘reckless and vicious confrontational racket’’ against Pyongyang.

A North Korean statement cited recently annual military drills the South held with the US, as well as recent arrests of leftists allegedly implicated in a pro- Pyongyang rebellion plot, and a widespread perception in Seoul that a more coherent North Korea policy by the conservative Seoul government is pushing a change in its northern neighbour.

‘‘It’s like being hit hard on the back of my head,’’ said Mr Chang, who said he had his bags packed for the trip days before he was supposed to leave.

‘‘I shed tears,’’ said Moon Jeong-ah, 85, who bought longjohns and other clothes for her two younger sisters whom she hoped to meet for the first time since she fled North Korea with her fiancee on a boat in early 1951. ‘‘I’m heart-stricken when I think about my sisters.’’

Last week at his home in Namyangju, just northeast of Seoul, Mr Chang said he had not seen his family members since he was conscripted into North Korea’s army in March 1951, nine months after the war started. He said he defected to a US-led UN military unit during a battle east of Seoul in August 1951.

‘‘The battle was too fierce. American planes flew over us . . . dropped oil drums and then incendiary bombs and it became a sea of fire,’’ Mr Chang said. Then a second lieutenant in the North’s Korean People’s Army, he said all his platoon members perished in the battle. ‘‘I defected to survive,’’ he said.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry on Saturday denounced the North’s decision as inhumane, saying Pyongyang cannot gain anything by foiling the dialogue mood and initiating confrontation.

About 22,000 North and South Koreans have had brief family reunions — 18,000 in person and the others by video — during a period of detente, but that ended in 2010 when tensions rose again. About 43% of the 56,000 applicants in South Korea have already died.