On July 27, 1953, the commanders of the U.N. forces., North Korea and China signed an armistice to end the three-year brutal conflict on the peninsula.

But the Korean War never ended for hundreds of South Korean prisoners of war believed to be living in the North.

For their families still unsure of their fate and frustrated with government failures to bring them back, it is also unfinished business.

Time is running out for the veterans who would be in their 80s and 90s. But hope for their return still remains feeble as inter-Korean ties are in the lowest ebb in years.

“It seems that the government does something only when this POW issue comes back into the spotlight. It needs to make consistent, continual efforts to secure the release of even a single prisoner,” said Ahn Sung-ho, a political science professor at Chungbuk National University.

“It needs to visit their families in the South on a regular basis to collect information on their loved ones and keep track of the POWs, and constantly seek to figure out a way to console or compensate them.”

The government does not have any regular state body in charge of issues surrounding the POWs. It only has an irregular gathering of officials from the ministries of defense and foreign affairs, and other related agencies, which is headed by a vice defense minister.

Seoul officials dismissed criticism, saying that the government had been doing its best behind the scenes.

The issue should be handled in a cautious and low-key manner because any conspicuous approach could put POWs and their families in the North in danger.

In particular, openly supporting the escape of POWs could cause legal and diplomatic issues as they could first be classified as border trespassers should they be caught crossing into China.

“We are doing our utmost. But it is quite sensitive and challenging to help them move out of the North as it is difficult to keep track of them and the issue becomes more complicated with brokers involved,” a government source told The Korea Herald on condition of anonymity.

“The government has long put this issue atop its national agenda as seen when it was put on the list of major agenda items whenever the two Koreas held government talks, both officially and unofficially.”

Until a decade ago, Seoul appeared reluctant to recognize the existence of the POWs. In 2000, then Unification Minister Park Jae-gyu went so far as to say, “Legally, this issue was over after the two Koreas exchanged their POWs (soon after the armistice agreement in July 1953).”

The former Roh Moo-hyun government began seeking to raise the issue during the inter-Korean defense ministers’ meeting in 2007, but Pyongyang refused to discuss it, repeating that there were no POWs who remained in the North against their will.

The former Lee Myung-bak government officially said it would strive to resolve the issue, but its efforts did not yield any progress as the inter-Korean relationship deteriorated amid a series of North Korean provocations. Incumbent President Park Geun-hye has also pledged efforts for the early return of POWs.

Apart from the support of the POWs, observers said more attention should be given to their family members who defected to the South, too. They suffered from harsh treatment as “reactionary elements” in the North. The number of such households in the South is currently more than 90.

The Seoul government offers each family 47.9 million won ($42,389) in addition to financial support given to all North Korean defectors. But they cannot claim any of the benefits to which their deceased fathers and husbands are entitled.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)