Divided Korea: Separated Siblings and a Son's Dangerous Mission to Rescue His Mother

This feature is part of a series examining how artificial borders reshape daily life, divide families, and force loved ones to navigate the human cost of political geography. Kang Myung Sook was 63 the last time she saw her brother in North Korea. She is 87 now and lives in an elderly care facility in rural South Korea, about 32 kilometres (20 miles) from the border with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. For two days in 2002, the siblings sat across from each other in a hotel banquet hall in a North Korean resort town, surrounded by hundreds of other families trying to compress 50 years of memories into a handful of hours.

She is one of roughly 34,000 living South Koreans officially registered as separated from family members in North Korea by the Korean War. This story follows two individuals affected by this division: a woman waiting nearly 75 years for the war to end properly, and a young man who crossed the line separating both Koreas to bring his family out.

The line dividing the Koreas was drawn almost arbitrarily on a night in August 1945 by two American colonels, Dean Rusk and Charles “Tic” Bonesteel III, who picked the 38th parallel. The division was meant to be temporary, but Cold War distrust led to the establishment of rival governments in 1948—a Soviet-aligned North under Kim Il Sung and a US-aligned South under Syngman Rhee. In June 1950, war broke out, and when the armistice was signed in July 1953, millions were permanently separated.

Decades later, Kang managed to briefly reconnect with her brother, Kang Won Gu, through a state-led reunion programme launched after the 2000 inter-Korean summit. However, that 2002 meeting at the Mount Kumgang Resort in North Korea remains the last time she ever saw him.

Of a different generation, Kim Kang-woo, 31, also felt the heavy impact of the border. After his father died following a forced repatriation to North Korea, Kim decided to escape at age 22, inspired by smuggled South Korean films like "Prosecutor Princess" (2010) and "Boys Over Flowers" (2009). He successfully defected in 2016, but his mother remained behind. Determined to rescue her, Kim undertook a perilous journey back across the border into North Korea to guide her out, eventually facing legal consequences in the South before reuniting with her in Seoul. Today, Kim studies political science at Kookmin University and shares his experiences, while both he and Kang continue to hold onto the hope of a unified future.