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SEOUL. — Hundreds of elderly South Koreans headed to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea yesterday to meet their long-lost DPRK relatives since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice.

A fleet of buses carrying 389 South Koreans from 96 families departed from Sokcho city on the country’s northeast coast, according to Seoul’s unification ministry in charge of affairs with the DPRK.

The family members spent Monday night at a resort in Sokcho near the demilitarised zone, which has divided the two Koreas since the Korean conflict ended in 1953, to receive medical checkups and education on dos and don’ts during their three-day stay in the North.

The participants in the humanitarian event, to which Seoul and Pyongyang agreed in late August during top-level military talks to defuse military tensions that had pushed the Korean peninsula to the brink of armed conflict, are mostly in their 80s and 90s.

The 16 buses carrying the elderly were followed by five ambulances for emergencies due to their advanced age and infirmity. Among the family members, some were carried by ambulances, some in wheelchairs and some wearing an oxygen mask.

The separated families were scheduled to cross the inter-Korean land border along the east coast at around 1pm into the scenic Mount Kumgang resort in the DPRK’s southeastern coast.

They were to meet their 141 DPRK relatives at about 3:30pm when the first two-hour gathering in public began. During their three-day stay through tomorrow at the Mount Kumgang resort, the separated families are allowed to meet their relatives six times for two hours each, both in private and in public. — Xinhua.