South Korea's civilian exchanges with North Korea more than doubled this year from a year earlier following an inter-Korean deal in August to ease tension, the Unification Ministry said Wednesday.

The value of humanitarian aid from local civic groups to North Korea reached 11.2 billion won ($9.55 million) from Jan. 1 to Dec. 17, up 107 percent from a year earlier, according to the ministry handling inter-Korean affairs.

The two Koreas reached a rare deal on Aug. 25 to defuse military tension and promote civilian inter-Korean exchanges.

The Seoul government has imposed punitive sanctions on North Korea banning massive state aid and trade since May 2010 to punish the North for sinking a South Korean warship. But it has encouraged civilians to increase humanitarian assistance to the North.

The ministry said that major assistance items include medical goods, powdered milk and saplings.

The number of South Koreans visiting the North reached 1,963 during the same period, up 255 percent from the previous year, it said.

The tally did not include those who moved in and out of a joint industrial park in the North's border city of Kaesong.

The two Koreas held reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War at Mount Kumgang in the North in late October.

Other major events included a joint project to excavate the site of Manwoldae, a Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392) palace in Kaesong, and football games held between the two Koreas' labor groups in October. (Yonhap)