Seoul - After decades of separation, families broken up by the division of the Korean Peninsula met in communist North Korea on Saturday. The programme to enable divided families to meet again had been suspended for almost two years due to political tensions between North and South Korea.
South Korean media reported that around 100 elderly South Koreans were bussed across the heavily guarded border to the meeting point in the Kumgang mountains on North Korea's coast. Around 240 of their North Korean relatives were waiting for them.
The family reunions are limited to three days. More meetings between family members divided by the division of the Korean Peninsula and the 1950-53 civil war are scheduled to take place on Tuesday.
As a rule there is no postal, email or telephone contract across the border between the two Koreas.
After rising tensions between North and South Korea in recent months, the family reunions are a sign of a cautious efforts to improve relations between the two countries.
The current round of family reunions was agreed on at the end of August by the countries' Red Cross societies. Between 2000 and October 2007, more than a dozen such reunions took place, bringing together some 16,000 people.
