The cancellation of a reunion for families separated by the Korean War has dealt a devastating blow to elderly Koreans denied a longed-for, and probably final, meeting with surviving relatives.
After a painstaking selection process, 96 South Koreans had been set to travel to the North's Mount Kumgang resort this week for a face-to-face gathering with family members they haven't seen for 60 years.
It would have been the first mass reunion for three years, but with just days to go, Pyongyang postponed the event, blaming "hostility" from South Korea.
The news shattered the hopes of the chosen participants, whose average age was 83 and many of whom were already in poor health.
In an interview with AFP before the postponement was announced, Lee Seon-Jong, 81, had said he was so excited about the prospect of meeting his two sisters that he could barely sleep.
"You can't imagine how much I've missed them," said Lee who suffered a stroke several years ago and had a heart operation that left him paralysed on one side.
Convinced that the scheduled event at Mount Kumgang would be his last chance, Lee became distraught upon hearing of the North's decision on Saturday.
"He was so shocked and disappointed, he couldn't speak or eat properly," his wife Ko Jae-Hee told AFP.
"In the end his condition got so bad, he had to be hospitalised," she added.
Lee had been on the waiting list for some 20 years before he got the call for the event, which many hoped would mark an improvement in cross-border relations after months of heightened tension.
Millions of Koreans were separated by the war, and the vast majority have since died without having any communication at all with surviving relatives.
Because the Korean conflict concluded with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, the two Koreas technically remain at war and direct exchanges of letters, e-mails or telephone calls are prohibited.
Up to 73,000 South Koreans are wait-listed for a chance to take part in one of the reunion events, which select only a few hundred participants at a time.
The critical time factor was underlined by the case of Kim Young-Joon, 91, who had been scheduled to meet his North Korean sister and brother in Mount Kumgang.
While giving an interview to a South Korean television channel on Thursday, Kim suffered a massive heart attack and died.
For Cheung Hi-Kyung, 80, the initial news that he had been selected for the reunion had been bittersweet.
