A doctor fled south in 1950 with one daughter, and 59 years later his four children left in North Korea sued their half-siblings for his estate

A doctor surnamed Yoon ran a hospital in Sunchon County in North Korea. When the Korean War began in 1950 he fled south with only his eldest daughter. He left his wife and other children. In 1959 he remarried in the South and had four more children. He ran a private hospital and died in 1987, leaving property worth about 10 billion won. In 2008 the eldest daughter asked a US missionary who travelled to the North to find her siblings. Four were alive. They gave hair and fingernail samples and a handwritten power of attorney. In February 2009 they sued their stepmother and four half-siblings in Seoul. In June 2010 a DNA test at Yonsei Severance Hospital matched them to the Southern children. Mediation failed in February 2011 when the Northern siblings asked for all 10 billion won. In July 2011 the Southern family agreed to give them part of the real estate and some cash. In May 2012 a new law took effect: inheritance won by North Koreans must be held by a court-appointed custodian and can go north only with government permission. In November 2012 the Seoul Family Court passed over the eldest daughter and appointed a lawyer as custodian, citing a conflict of interest; Hankyoreh reported she was suspected of spending or hiding part of the inheritance. In July 2013 the Supreme Court upheld the ruling that the four were Yoon's children.