They have been reunited after being separated for over six decades as South Koreans crossed the border with the North to meet their family members.
The long-awaited emotional reunions involve around 500 South Koreans and about half as many from the North.
They had not seen each other since the Korean War in the early 1950s.
For many it will be the last chance to meet separated loved ones.
Of the 128,000 people registered in South Korea as coming from families that were torn apart by the Korean War, 44 percent have already died and more than 80 percent of the survivors are over 70, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations.
The North had threatened to block the meetings unless South Korea suspended joint military exercises with the United States, but then backed down.
The reunions are the first since 2010 when tensions between the two Koreas spiralled.
They went ahead despite the release of a damming United Nations report on human
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