South Korean POW Reunites With Family

Jun Yong-il, a South Korean soldier who returned home this week after being held in North Korea for 50 years, still had a big brother’s swagger when finally reunited with his sister Friday.

“My little sister, come here! I will hug you and carry you on my back as I used to. I am not as weak as I look,” 72-year-old Jun said as his sister, Boon-yi, buried her tearful face in his chest.

The sister – a toddler when Jun last saw her before joining the South Korean military during the 1950-53 Korean War – is now a graying 57-year-old woman.

“I am sorry that I was away so long and did not do my duty as brother,” Jun said, holding her face with his weathered hands.

Jun reportedly fled North Korea in June by swimming across the river border with China. He and an unidentified female companion were arrested in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou in November while trying to board a flight to South Korea with forged passports. In the half century before he turned up in China, South Korea had listed him as killed in action.

After lengthy diplomatic negotiations, China allowed the couple to fly to South Korea on Christmas Eve. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun hailed it “a precious Christmas present.”

Jun is the latest of more than 30 South Korean prisoners of war who have managed to escape the communist country since 1994. His return has strengthened South Korea’s resolve to pursue the fate of at least 300 other POWs the North is believed to still be holding.

Details of Jun’s life in North Korea have not yet been made public, as he is being debriefed by South Korean authorities. But on landing Wednesday, the gray-haired man proudly said he had never forgotten he was a South Korean solider.

On Friday, wearing a black felt hat and striped silk tie, Jun strode into a Defense Ministry room where officials arranged a brief reunion with his two sisters, brother and a nephew.

“Who are you?” he asked his 78-year-old sister Yong-mok.

She told him that their mother never forgot him.

“Until she died, mother so often talked about you,” she said.

His 65-year-old brother Soo-il kneeled down on the floor and made a deep bow to his brother.

Jun joined the South Korean army in 1951 and was captured by Chinese troops who fought alongside North Korean forces in the Korean War. Fighting stopped in 1953, but the North and South are still technically at war after the conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Efforts to bring the forgotten soldiers home have made little progress, as Pyongyang denies holding any POW.

Jun, who was a private first class when captured, is expected to be promoted to staff sergeant before being formally discharged from the military. He stands to receive more than $300,000 in unpaid salary and other compensation.

While China has a treaty with North Korea obliging it to send home fleeing North Koreans, it routinely lets them leave if their cases become an issue with other countries.

Brother Soo-il said he was proud of his elder brother and hoped the Defense Ministry would release him soon.

“He must have gone through a lot all these years. We want to take him home and give him a thorough medical checkup,” he said.