Korean soldier returns home after 50 years

A former South Korean soldier who was captured in 1953 during the Korean War finally returned home today, after 50 years of captivity in North Korea.

Landing at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, Jun Yong-il, aged 72, said he had never forgotten that he was a South Korean solider.

The grey-haired private flew from China, where he had been in Chinese custody since November 13, when they were arrested in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou while trying to board a flight to South Korea using forged passports.

South Korea has been asking the Chinese government to release Jun.

Jun joined the South Korean army in 1951 and was captured by Chinese troops who fought alongside North Korean forces in the 1950-53 Korean War.

Fighting stopped in 1953 but the North and South are still technically at war after the conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Until his arrest in China, the South Korean government had assumed him dead. Details on when and how Jun escaped North Korea were not immediately known.