By Kim Eun-jung
SEOUL, Dec. 1 (Yonhap) -- A Seoul court on Wednesday confirmed a paternal relationship between four North Koreans and their father in South Korea, a ruling that could legitimize the children's claim to a family inheritance of more than US$8 million.

   In the first paternity suit involving the divided states, the Seoul Family Court said the North Koreans are the children of a man who had settled in South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War.

   The father, identified only by his family name Yoon, had come to the South with one of his five children. He remarried and had four more children with his second wife.

   The siblings in the North filed suits in February last year, demanding their portion of the inheritance their father, who died in 1987, left behind. The assets, mostly real estate, were valued at 10 billion won ($8.6 million).

   The inheritance suit was filed on behalf of the North Koreans by an unidentified member of a civic group who frequently visited the North for relief activities.

   Court proceedings on the inheritance were put on hold to wait for the ruling on the paternity suit.

   The Seoul Family Court had accepted the plaintiffs' request to forbid Yoon's South Korean wife from disposing of the property and requested a Seoul hospital to conduct a DNA test using hair strands and fingernails. The results that came out in June identified the four North Koreans as related with Yoon's children in the South by blood.

   The two Koreas are technically still at war after the Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

   ejkim@yna.co.kr
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