After decades behind bars, N. Korea loyalists still seek repatriation

Last month, 95-year-old Ahn Hak-sop, leaning on others for support, made slow steps across the southern end of Tongil Bridge in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, with a clear goal: to reach North Korea. “I want my body to be buried in the land of a truly independent nation after I die,” Ahn said. “The longing to return home has been unbearably strong, because my ideals, way of life and actions are rooted in North Korea.” Ahn is one of six former North Korean agents and South Korean leftist activists who spent decades in the South’s prisons without renouncing their communist beliefs who recently asked the Ministry of Unification to send them to North Korea. Of the six, two were born in the North, while Ahn and the rest were born in the South and imprisoned for leftist activities or siding with North Korean forces. Ahn’s story highlights how the wounds of Korea’s division remain deeply personal more than seven decades after the 1953 armistice, reflecting the enduring pain of those separated by history. It also underscores a sobering reality: The generation that lived through the conflWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times