Update: South Korea’s Ministry of Unification have rejected the offer in a short statement released on Friday. “The group defection from North Korea was totally according to their free will. The family reunion that KCNA released is unacceptable,” the MoU said.

North Korea has offered to send the families of a recent group of defectors to Panmunjom or Seoul in order for them to be reunited, according to an article published by state media on Thursday.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) article, carrying a statement by an unnamed spokesperson from North Korea’s Central Committee of the Red Cross Society, also