``Lord, how long will you prolong this tragedy? Isn't 50 years of separation enough?'' Lee cried as tears streamed down his wrinkled face. Overcome with emotion, he had to be helped down the slope by others.

Lee was one of about 800 tourists from South Korea on an unprecedented tour last week of Diamond Mountain, a wilderness of high crags, steep valleys and rushing streams on the North's east coast.

Most of the visitors were elderly North Korean natives who were separated from their families during the 1950-53 Korean War, a fate shared by ten million people on both sides of the border.

No family reunions took place during the tour, a joint venture between Seoul's Hyundai group and North Korea. The five-day, four-night visit ended yesterday when the tourists' cruise shipreturned to the South.

Lee and many other separated families used the visit to the mountain to hold memorial services for their deceased ancestors or pray for reunions with lost families.

Seven months after the Korean War broke out in 1950, Lee, then 22, fled to South Korea to evade being drafted into North Korea's army. He left behind a 20-year-old wife and a three-month-old daughter.

``I thought the war would end soon and we could be reunited,'' Lee said, heaving a sigh. ``Who could have imagined that the separation would last 50 years, and maybe, forever?''

Forty years later in 1991, Lee, through a friend in the United States, found that his wife, now 68, and his daughter, 48, were still living at his native home in Haeju, a major city on the North's west coast.

Pretending that he resides in the United States, Lee has since exchanged about 50 letters with his wife and daughter. All of his letters were first sent to the United States where they were re-mailed to North Korea.

He has kept hisresidence in South Korea secret even to his family in the North, because he fears his whereabouts could endanger them. North Korea reportedly persecutes residents with immediate relatives in enemy South Korea.

Park Soon-Yong, 76, also a refugee from North Korea, learned during the tour that his mother died in a US bombing raid in 1951, during the height of the war. He had last seen her a year before her death.

After the cruise ship arrived at Changjon port last Thursday, Park approached North Korean officials for information about his mother, who had a fish-processing business in the port in 1950, away from her family in Pyongyang, the capital.

Responding to his repeated appeals, North Koreans checked records and told him how his mother died.

On Saturday, Park held a memorial service for her. He set up a makeshift altar on a rock on Diamond Mountain and made traditional deep bows in her memory.

``Mother, I've come to know today officially for the first time that you died 47 years ago. I've come toolate. Sorry, mother,'' he recited in a prayer.

For Kim Taek-Ki, 70, the trip brought fresh agony.

Kim had hoped to locate or hear about his parents and four brothers he has not seen since 1950. The tour was scheduled to pass through his native village, Onjung-Ri, at the foot of Diamond Mountain.

But the village of about 500 homes was gone. Several state retreat centres stand where the village used to be. Kim found that all 2,000 villagers were relocated to other areas 20 years ago.

Kim, a farmer living in eastern South Korea, was separated from his family when he fled to the South a few months after the war started and was drafted into the South Korean army.

His oldest brother, Kim Taek-Sung, was already serving in the North Korean army.

``I might have fought one of many battles against my brother during the war,'' Kim said. ``What a tragedy. So many years have passed since the war ended. But the real war still continues, a war against agony.''