If you thought the falling of the Berlin wall made for teary reunions, how about being reunited after nearly seven decades?

That’s what’s been happening at the border between North and South Korea today, as elderly citizens from both countries embraced relatives they were separated from during the Korean War.

Sky News reports:

There were emotional scenes as reunions took place at North Korea’s Diamond Mountain resort.

A 92-year-old South Korean woman wept and stroked the wrinkled cheeks of her 71-year-old North Korean son.

As they met, Lee Keum-seom asked her son Ri Sang Chol: “How many children do you have? Do you have a son?”

Hugging the woman he had last seen as a child, Mr Ri showed his mother a photo of her late husband, who had stayed behind in the North with him as a boy.

Han Shin-ja, a 99-year-old South Korean woman, was lost for words after she was reunited with her two North Korean daughters, both in their early 70s.

Not knowing their separation would be permanent, she had left them behind in the North during the war while fleeing south with her third and youngest daughter.

You read right – 99 years old.

Some footage from the emotional meeting:

Because North and South Korea are still technically at war, all civilian exchanges are banned, so families on either side have never been able to communicate:

More than 130,000 South Koreans have signed up for a reunion since the events began but most of them have since died.

The oldest participant this year, Baik Sung-kyu, is 101, and will meet his daughter-in-law and granddaughter. He said he had packed clothes, underwear, 30 pairs of shoes, toothbrush and toothpaste as gifts.

“I also brought 20 stainless spoons,” he added.

“I bought everything because it’s my last time.”

There’s one time you’re really not bothered about getting undies as a gift.

[source:skynews]