Three more South Korean workers returned home Saturday from the joint industrial complex in North Korea's border city of Kaesong, the unification ministry said, amid no clear signs that the suspended complex will resume normal operations any time soon.

   Their return lowered the total number of South Korean workers staying at the factory park to 190, compared with 861 on April 2, a day before North Korea began barring South Koreans from entering the complex while allowing only those already there to return to the South.

   North Korea later withdrew all of its 53,000 workers from the zone, forcing the 123 small-scale South Korean factories there to suspend their operations. The communist nation also threatened to permanently shut down the complex, the last-remaining symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation.

   The ministry said two South Korean workers are scheduled to return home on Monday. (Yonhap)