In an emotional meeting, a one-time Korean war orphan has been reunited with her 91-year-old Turkish benefactor at an Istanbul hospital.
The tale of how Sgt. Süleyman Dilbirliği took 5-year-old Eunja Kim under his wing, protecting her in the midst of the Korean War, over a half-century ago, was recently dramatized in the movie Ayla, taken from the girl's Turkish name.
The real-life Kim visited Dilbirligi Tuesday in the hospital, where he is undergoing treatment. When she went into his room, she could not hold back her tears.
"Kim grabbed her foster father's hands as soon as she entered the room, and later she cried a lot. It was a very sad scene." Coşkun Yılmaz, Istanbul provincial director of culture and tourism, told Anadolu Agency.
"While she was holding his hands, her foster father reacted to it. One of the hospital workers there said that he hadn't been reacting to anything up until now, [but now] apparently he felt that his daughter was there," he added.
Earlier Kim told reporters that she had been longing to see her foster father, wanting to visit him the first chance she got.
"Meeting him after years apart made me feel new emotions and made me overjoyed," she said.
After they were first separated in the early 1950s, Kim related, "We first met in 2010, and after that we met two or three times. When we weren't able to meet, we wrote letters to each other."
Turkey made Ayla its nomination in the Best Foreign Language Movie category for the 2018 Oscars.
Turkish forces served under UN command during the Korean War of 1950-1953, and 774 Turkish soldiers were martyred.
