Separated families in South Korea have had no exchanges with their relatives in North Korea either at government or civilian levels for more than a year amid frosty inter-Korean relations, government data showed Tuesday. Separately from government-arranged reunions, divided families in South Korea also seek help from brokers to meet their long-lost relatives in the North, confirm their fates or exchange letters, but there were no such cases at all in the second half of last year and the first half of this year, according to the data from the unification ministry. Such civilian-level exchanges should be reported to the government. The last civilian-level exchanges were two cases of letter exchanges in February 2023, the ministry said. The issue of separated families has taken on urgency as more elderly people have died without having a chance to meet their kin in the North due to Pyongyang's reluctance to hold family reunion events. The number of surviving separated family members registered with the gov ernment came to 38,139 as of the end of June, down 1,454 from the end of last year, the data showed. Among them, 66.9 percent are aged 80 and older. Source: Yonhap News Agency