Separated families return home after reunions in Seoul, P`yang

After three days of tearful reunions, separated family members from South and North Korea returned home Wednesday to Seoul and Pyongyang, respectively.

The North Korean delegation, headed by Kim Kyong-Rak, standing committee member of the North Korean Red Cross Society, flew back to Pyongyang on an Asiana airliner at 10 a.m.

The South Korean delegates, led by Chang Jung-Ja, vice president of the Korea National Red Cross, later left Sunan Airport in Pyongyang on the same plane and returned to Seoul.

Prior to their return home, the visitors met their kin for 30 minutes at Seoul`s Chamsil Lotte World Hotel and Pyongyang`s Koryo Hotel, respectively. Son Sa-Jung, 90, a South Korean visitor who was treated for exhaustion at a Pyongyang hospital shortly after his arrival, had a tearful and dramatic reunion with his son Yang-Rok, 55, at the Koryo Hotel.

Meanwhile, North Korea`s chief delegate said in a departure statement that he hoped North Korean prisoners serving long-term sentences in the South for refusing to convert from communism would be repatriated to the North at an early date.

Ha Tae-Won scooop@donga.com