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SEOUL : A group of Korean-Americans was to visit North Korea on Wednesday for the first family reunions for Koreans living abroad, Yonhap news agency reported.
It said the group of 15 would begin an eight-day visit that will include face-to-face reunions with family members, a visit to the Arirang Festival and a tour of the Panmunjom border truce village.
Thousands of South and North Koreans have held family reunions since a full-scale programme began in 2000. But Yonhap said this is the first time that ethnic Koreans living abroad have been officially allowed into the North to meet their kin.
Shin Nam-Ho, head of the Los Angeles branch of South Korea's National Unification Advisory Council, visited Pyongyang in February to negotiate the reunion, the agency reported.
The group is bringing some 2,000 bags of fertiliser and vitamins for children in the communist state, which suffers major food shortages.
"I escaped to the South at the start of the Korean War. I am going to my home town for the first time in 57 years and I couldn't sleep from excitement," said 76-year-old Lee Seok-Gyu.
Tens of thousands of Koreans have been divided from their kin since the 1950-53 war.
Since 2000 about 14,500 have been allowed face-to-face reunions. About 2,700 others have been reunited via video link under a programme which began in August 2005.
Even so, more than 90,000 people from the South alone have not seen loved ones since the war ended. There are no mail or telephone services across the border.
South Korea regards the meetings as a pressing issue because many relatives are desperate to see family members before they die.
- AFP /ls
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