About the Author
Chaewon Chung
Chaewon Chung is a Seoul correspondent at NK News. Before joining NK News, she covered disinformation and technology with a focus on the Korean Peninsula at Coda Story.
From inside a prison camp in Kangdong county, Yoo Young-bok watched as artillery shells lit up the night sky, a celebration of North Korea’s “victory” in the Korean War, and felt a hope spark inside him.
“We will be able to go back home soon,” he thought on that evening in 1953, anticipating an exchange of North and South Korean prisoners of war (POWs) like himself. He would be able to see his father and younger sister soon enough.