The Korean Red Cross said Thursday it is seeking to make video messages of about 10,000 South Koreans who's families were separated by the 1950-53 Korean War by year-end to deliver to their relatives in North Korea next year.

Since August, the Red Cross has been making 10 to 13-minute-long video messages containing greetings from South Korean separated families, and expectations for reunions with their kin in the North and their personal stories.

More than 66,000 South Koreans, mostly in their 80s and older, are living without being allowed to contact their relatives in the North as a legacy of the Korean War, which ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

The move is aimed at promoting exchanges among the separated families as about half of an estimated 129,700 South Koreans on the waiting list for family reunions have died.

The project is expected to cost some 2 billion won ($1.75 million) from the government's fund for inter-Korean exchanges.

The two Koreas held family reunions involving 186 separated families on Oct. 20-26 at a resort on Mount Kumgang on the North's east coast. It was the first event since February 2014.

Since the first inter-Korean summit in 2000, the rival Koreas have held 20 rounds of face-to-face family reunion events including the latest one, involving only some 19,800 family members from both sides. (Yonhap)