Korea divided: A sister’s long wait and a defector’s bid to save his mother

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports on the human cost of Korea’s division through two personal stories: an 87-year-old South Korean woman, Kang Myung Sook, who has waited decades to see her brother in North Korea again, and a younger North Korean defector who is trying to help his mother escape. The feature is set in South Korea and North Korea and was published on Aug. 29, 2026.

Kang said she last saw her brother in 2002 during a rare family reunion program, when separated relatives were briefly allowed to meet under close government supervision. According to the article, she and her brother had been split apart by the Korean War, which left millions on opposite sides of the border when the 1953 armistice froze the conflict without a peace treaty. Al Jazeera says roughly 34,000 South Koreans are officially registered as separated family members, while many more remain uncounted.

The story uses Kang’s experience to show how a border drawn in 1945, then hardened by war and the Cold War, still shapes family life today. It also highlights the unusually militarized nature of the inter-Korean boundary, now the Demilitarized Zone, which continues to keep families apart.

A second thread follows a North Korean defector who, according to Al Jazeera, took major risks to cross back toward the North in an effort to save his mother. Together, the two accounts underscore how unresolved wartime separation continues to affect both elderly relatives waiting for reunion and younger Koreans trying to reunite or rescue family members.