SOUTH KOREA: Mass for peace held on North/South Korean border

Record ID: 521834

  • Title: SOUTH KOREA: Mass for peace held on North/South Korean border
  • Date: 18th June 2011
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Korean) CATHOLIC PRIEST LEE EUN-HYONG SAYING: "We have prepared this peace Mass for the peninsula to unite our Christians' will first for the true peace, not the war again, on this peninsula."
  • Embargoed: 3rd July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Korea, Democratic People's Republic of, Korea, Republic of
  • City:
  • Country: Korea, Democratic People's Republic of
  • Topics: International Relations,Religion,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVA79D13F5G5JQEEOYVLM2NPFDCY
  • Story Text: Thousands of Catholics gathered for an outdoor Mass near the North Korean border on Friday (June 17) to pray for peace amid high tensions on the Korean peninsula.
    South Korean Unification Minister Hyun In-taek joined about 20,000 Catholics, including 200 priests, in the border city of Paju for the peace Mass.
    "They say more than three million North Koreans have starved to death since the floods in the 1990s. Without the world's food aid, a huge number of people would suffer from malnutrition," said Bishop Kang Woo-il.
    During the Mass, donations were collected to send food aid to the North and prayers were said to prevent an escalation of tensions.
    "We have prepared this peace Mass for the peninsula to unite our Christians' will, first, for the true peace, not the war again, on this peninsula," said Catholic priest Lee Eun-hyong.
    Tension between the two rose to its highest since the 1950-53 Korean War, after the South accused the North of sinking one of its naval ships in March 2010 and later bombarding a South Korean island.
    Pyongyang denies any involvement in the sinking and accuses Seoul of goading it into launching the later artillery attack that killed four people, including two civilians.
    South Korea's military launched a defence command for five islands near a sea border with North Korea on Wednesday (June 15) to cope with possible attacks from its communist neighbor.
    North Korea criticised the move saying it was aimed invading the North.
    The launch of the Northeast Islands Defence Command came about seven months after the attack on one of the border islands.
    North Korea disputes the NLL (Northern Limit Line), a sea border between the two Koreas, established by the United Nations without Pyongyang's consent at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
    The North said on Friday it would dispose of South Korean assets seized or frozen at the North's Kumgang Mountain resort, Seoul's Yonhap News agency quoted North Korea's official news agency KCNA as saying.
    The tours to the resort area came to a halt after a Seoul woman allegedly trespassed into a restricted zone and was shot dead near the resort in 2008, Yonhap News added.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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