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 Korean peninsula’s division.
However, 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 Centre is an inhumane act that tramples on the earnest wishes of separated families,” a spokesman 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 spokesman 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.
At least 75% say they do not know if their relatives are alive or dead. A handful were lucky enough to be chosen to take part in the occasional cross-border reunions, mostly hosted at the Mount Kumgang resort.
With the reunion programme effectively halted, the reality for most of the separated families is that they are unlikely to ever see each other again.
Severing ties
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.
Last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un 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.
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.