More than 30 student survivors of April’s ferry disaster in South Korea marched on parliament yesterday to press demands by victims’ relatives for an independent inquiry into the tragedy that claimed about 300 lives.
Accompanied by their parents, the students, left their high school in Ansan, south of Seoul, on Tuesday to walk the 32km to the capital’s National Assembly building.
Hundreds of citizens joined the march as the students carrying yellow umbrellas neared the parliament, holding placards bearing such slogans as “Truth never sinks.”
They dispersed peacefully after putting dozens of yellow flags down outside the parliament compound.
The 6,825-tonne Sewol sank in waters off the country’s southwest coast on April 16 with 476 people on board. Of those 476, 325 were teenaged students from Danwon High School in Ansan. Only 75 of the students escaped alive.
The march was in support of victims’ families calling for the swift passage of a special bill that would set up an independent inquiry into the causes of the tragedy.
“Three months have passed since the Sewol disaster, but the true picture of the tragedy is still shrouded in mystery,” the families said in a joint statement.
The relatives want representation on the inquiry panel, which they insist should be endowed with prosecutorial powers.
The bill is stuck in parliament because of a split over the legal foundation of the proposed investigation.
Several family members have staged symbolic hunger strikes to push their demands and collected a petition with 3.5 million signatures calling for the bill to be adopted.
Three months after the Sewol sank, dive teams are still attempting daily searches for the bodies of the few victims still unaccounted for.
Fifteen Sewol crew members are currently on trial, including the captain and three senior officers who are accused of “homicide through wilful negligence” — a charge that can carry the death penalty.
The bulk of the charges arise from accounts of the crew abandoning the ferry while hundreds of people were still trapped inside.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye and her administration have been bitterly criticized for their response to the disaster, which stunned the entire country.
A report by the state auditor last week said that the sinking was a “manmade disaster” created by negligence, corruption and greed.
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