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The Korean war was known to be one of the greatest wars of human history that left massive destruction in the Korean peninsula.
The backdrop of the Korean War
We should first look into Korea before World war 2 when the two-South Korea and North Korea were a unified state where the Japanese took control during the pre-war rampage. Japanese war occupation led to massive damage to the Korean society and many people were killed, starved and raped.
In the world war of 1945, the fall of Japan paved the way for the liberation of the Korean peninsula from the Japanese rule. After this, Korea became free but it got divided into two parts namely- North Korea and South Korea.
In this post-world war II worlds, two massive powerhouses were USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and US (United States) and it started the era of Cold war. Like in Germany, Korean peninsula also got divided into two parts according to the 38th parallel North.
The northern part got named as North Korea, which was established with the help of the Soviet Republic as a Communist state under the leadership of Kim Il-sung.
On the other hand, the southern part was established with the help of the United States as an anti-communist state, where capitalist principles were to be followed and it was established under the leadership of Syngman Rhee in 1948.
Though the countries were of the same origin, the division of the country according to two different ideologies created some collision according to their existence.
War and Related Political Undergoing
Everything changed on the day of 25 June 1950, this day may be remembered due to its importance as the start of this blood-soaked episode. It started when the North Korean army crossed the borderline and attacked South Korea. It was supported by the Soviet Red Army and Chinese People’s voluntary army.
On the other hand, after hearing this news of the attack, the United Nations immediately stood beside South Korea- with the US sending its troops to help South Korean state to restore normalcy. But the situation was out of hand with the continuous army retaliation from two sides which lead to an injury of a large number of people.
It was believed that during this war the South Korean capital town of Seoul was captured four times and again freed with the help of US troops, and it was backed by 21 nations under the UN.
On the other hand, North Korea was heavily bombed through this whole exercise and both sides were equally damaged and could not have a significant gain through this war.
Over 3 Million people were approximately killed, injured or amputated. Almost 1.8 lakh people of South Korean army lost their lives and approximately 3.8 lakh people of North Korean army were killed.
Similarly, many people of the Chinese army and the Russian side died from the North Korean part and US army perished from the South Korean side. The South Korean government was accused of brutally torturing and killing thousands of communists, on the other hand, the North Korean government was accused of violating human rights against prisoners of war.
End of The War and the Current Political Situation
The whole war ended on 27 July in 1953 when the armistice was declared from the South Korean side, as no result was being declared of the war and it left huge destruction on both sides that can only be compared with Vietnam war.
Though there was an armistice, a peace treaty was never signed between North Korea and South Korea- that means the two independent nations are still in war till date. The conflict has taken the shape of a frozen battle to date.
A demilitarized zone was created along the 38 parallel but the tensions remain till date after the repatriation of the prisoners of war on the two sides. After 1953 the tensions remained escalated with the complete absence of any bilateral relations between the two countries.
In the year of 2018, a meeting was held along the DMZ to help develop the bilateral relations but it was just a beginning of a new era and cannot say how fruitful it will be in developing a new era of bilateral partnership.
Written by - Bodhiswatta Mukherjee
Edited by - Ivanova
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