The number of surviving South Koreans registered as eligible for meetings with North Korean family members divided by the Korean War continued to drop steadily in 2017 with less than 60,000 remaining, according to statistics published by the Ministry of Unification (MOU) in January.

While 2017 witnessed 194 new applicants, a total of 3797 of the existing registered members also passed away, according to the monthly compilation of statistics.

While there exists a minor single digit discrepancy between the annual and compiled monthly data, according to the MoU 59,037 South Korean nationals remain on the list as of December 31,