Hundreds of family members reunited

Lee Keum-seom, 92, an ROK participant, met her son Ri Sung-chol on Monday for the first time since she was separated from him and her husband.

At the time the boy was aged just 4. He is now 72. "I never imagined this day would come," Lee said earlier. "I didn't even know if he was alive or not."

Their meeting, arranged after decades of separation, will be painfully short. They will be granted permission to meet for only 11 hours in group and private gatherings during the reunion.

Since 2000, the two neighbors have held 20 rounds of reunions, but most of the more than 130,000 ROK participants who signed up for them since the events began have since died. The last such event was held in October 2015.