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Han Bok Yeo (center) sits together with two of her neighbors from Seo-Yeonpyeong Island inside their government supplied apartment in Gimpo. (Photo: Jason Strother)

South Korea today proposed a date to resume military talks with North Korea. The two sides haven’t met since Pyongyang launched an attack on South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island in November, killing two marines and two civilians.

About 1,500 people lived on Yeonpyeong and a smaller adjacent island before the attack. Most evacuated and are now living on the mainland.

In the city of Gimpo, an hour outside of Seoul, Han Bok Yeo welcomes people to her seventh floor apartment. It is more than four hours from home on Seo-Yeonpyeong Island, a small island that also came under North Korean fire late last year.

The 60-year old Han now lives with several of her island neighbors in this spacious apartment. Around 900 islanders live in this apartment complex, all paid for by the South Korean government.

Han said she appreciates everything that came with the apartment, but it’s been tough to adjust to life on the mainland. “Normally, we just watch TV,” she said. “Some people go to church, sometimes we take walks. But we have a hard time getting used to all the air pollution here.”

Like most of the islanders, Han doesn’t have a job here. She relies on a government stipend. Han said she wants to return to Seo-Yeonpyeong Island as soon as possible, but all the pipes in her house are frozen.

51-year old Lee Seong-bon, a member of a residents committee that formed after the evacuation, said that most of the homes on the islands have frozen pipes and busted boilers. He said there are many other problems that make it difficult for islanders to go back home.

For instance, temporary shelters on the island aren’t warm enough, many homes still have cracks, and melted snow is leaking in. Lee said the government should do more to fix these problems.

But the government says it has done enough.

An official from the South Korean Department of Disaster Management, who declined to go on the record, maintained that the homes on the island are in fine condition. He said the islanders keep asking for more money, but all financial and housing support for them is set to end on February 18th.

According to Lee Seong-bon, the residents will push for an extension of aid, though he is optimistic about Seoul’s decision to re-open dialogue with Pyongyang. He said many islanders are still afraid to go home, and he thinks the military talks could calm their fears.

Still, he added, the islanders feel wronged by the North Korean and the South Korean governments. “We want an apology from North Korea,” Lee said, “but we also want a stronger guarantee from the South Korean government that it will do a better job of protecting the islands’ residents.”

Han Bok Yeo, who lives in the 7th floor apartment in Gimpo, doesn’t seem too concerned about getting an apology from North Korea. “I don’t know a lot about these talks and I don’t really care about them,” she said. “I just want to go back to the island.”