The hidden village just metres from North Korea

Gyung-ho lives in the only South Korean village in the Demilitarised Zone. The strip of no-man#39;s land separating North and South Korea is one of the most militarised places on earth. It was created in 1953, after the Korean War, to keep the two armies apart. Freedom Village and Peace Village sit within Korea#39;s Demilitarised Zone.

They were supposed to signal that the DMZ was temporary and one day soon Korea would be reunified. 70 years on, the prospect of unification seems slim, and their numbers are dwindling. Gyung-ho and Mi-sun, with their two small children, are unusual. Freedom Village, known in Korean as Taesung, is near the border with North Korea.

There are no restaurants, medical facilities, nor a single shop in the village. The villagers, many in their 80s and 90s, live under the guard of more than 800 soldiers. At 85, she has outlived two of her six children, as well as her husband who died young after being shot in the stomach by a North Korean soldier. Initially there was only one bus a week to take them out of the DMZ.

Now there are three buses a day, and with her partying days behind her, she only ventures out once every two months to get her hair done. The village is run by the United Nations Command - a US-led army. The force is responsible for ensuring the armistice holds. There has never been a peace deal between North and South Korea.

Residents of Taesung are on the front line of flaring tensions. The village is not dangerous day to day, but the risk is incredibly high, says US Lieutenant Colonel Chris Mercado, who leads the elite battalion of soldiers. The border guards in the North will be on high alert and likely watching our every move we#39;re told, and our presence might spook them. There are no fences or barriers physically separating the village from North Korea.

Only a rusty sign demarks an invisible line, along with a dense tangle of trees and bushes. As a resident ploughs the last of his season#39;s rice, two soldiers with machine guns stand guard. Villagers do not pay taxes or rent, and their abundance of farmland. They need permission to leave after 7pm and are not allowed out after midnight.

Any crops they cannot sell, the government will buy. Kim Kyung-rae took up arms aged 16 to defend the village during the war. The symbolism of Taesung appears lost on Mr Kim and the other founding residents. They all say they have remained here out of habit and necessity.

But while the generation who fought for this land is resigned to dying here, many of their children have moved on. All six of Mr Kim#39;s daughters left to continue their education, never to return. Sleepy Taesung, with all its restrictions, can no longer compete with the bright lights and boundless opportunities of South Korea. Over the past decade its population has dropped by a third from 213 to 138, while the proportion of elderly residents has doubled.

There are only six students per class at the village#39;s state-of-the-art primary school. North Koreans are thought to have abandoned Kijong long ago. Lt Col Mercado and his team at United Nations Command are determined to keep Taesung running. They are brainstorming ways to persuade people to stay.

One option is to reduce the number of nights the villagers must spend here to retain their residency. Kim Dong-rae says this will be the final year she makes her acorn jelly. As this dream fades, it is getting harder to convince people to live on the front line of an unresolved conflict. 34;It would send a very strong message that the terms of the armistice are no longer being enforced,#34;" he says.

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