PAJU, Gyeonggi Province - The Imjin River, near the heavily guarded Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) serving as a buffer zone between the two Koreas, was frozen on Feb. 7. Flowing from the North to the South, the river is a chilling reminder of the confrontation between the two Koreas that has continued for seven decades.Rice paddies tended by villagers of Daeseong-dong in the border city of Paju surrounded the road towards the 245-kilometer Military Demarcation Line. The border marked the battlefront in 1953, when an armistice to end the three-year Korean War was signed between North Korea, China and the U.S.-led United Nations Command. Layers of ice had formed in the furrows of barren fields, where rare cranes foraged and fed in the landmine-filled DMZ, which has become a wildlife sanctuary.