Seoul (AFP) โ North Korea is demolishing a venue that for decades hosted tearful reunions of families separated by the Korean War and the division of the country, Seoul said Thursday, calling the move "inhumane".
Millions of people were swept apart by the 1950-53 Korean War, which split the peninsula and separated brothers and sisters, parents and children and husbands and wives.
Hostilities ceased with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically still at war and with all direct civilian exchanges prohibited.
Emotional reunions in the North's Kumgang mountain served as a testament to the devastating human cost of the division.
But the meetings were subject to the vagaries of inter-Korea politics and often used as a negotiating tool by Pyongyang. The last one was held in 2018.
"The demolition of the Mount Kumgang Reunion Center is an inhumane act that tramples on the earnest wishes of separated families," a spokesperson for Seoul's unification ministry said.
South Korea "sternly urges an immediate halt to such actions" and "expresses strong regret".
"North Korea's unilateral demolition cannot be justified under any pretext, and the North Korean authorities must bear full responsibility for this situation," the spokesperson added.
Since 1988, around 130,000 South Koreans have registered their "separated families".
As of 2025, around 36,000 of those individuals are still alive, according to official data.
Seventy-five percent of separated families say they do not know if their relatives are alive or dead.
An official at the Inter Korean Separated Families Association blamed deteriorating inter-Korean relations under ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol for reunion centre's demolition.
"Ever since the administration took office, everything has been cut off," the official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.
"There's no way family reunions can happen."
Only a handful of families were lucky enough to take part in the occasional crossborder reunions, mostly hosted at the Mount Kumgang resort.
With the reunion program effectively halted, most of the separated families are unlikely to ever see each other again.
North and South Korea held the first such reunion in 1985, but it was not until 2000 that they became regular events following the first inter-Korean summit that year.
The reunions were marked by emotional scenes of families tearfully reuniting and parting after brief days of meeting.
Relations between the two Koreas are now at one of their lowest points in years, with the North launching a flurry of ballistic missiles last year in violation of UN sanctions.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last year declared Seoul his "principal enemy" and renounced his government's long-held goal of re-unification.
"Kim Jong Un declared his intention to sever all inter-Korean ties," Lim Eul-Chul, a professor at Seoul's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, told AFP.
"I see this as part of that process," Lim said, of the reunion centre demolition.
However, they added that once a new administration takes over, restoration of the centre will likely follow.
Pyongyang has also bombarded the South with trash-carrying balloons, in what it says is retaliation for anti-Pyongyang propaganda missives sent north by activists.