South Korea yesterday remembered the 304 people, most of them schoolchildren, who died on the Sewol ferry on the 10th anniversary of its sinking, with families calling for a proper apology for the unnecessary deaths of their loved ones.
Many parents attended a memorial service in the city of Ansan, home of the 250 children who died on the ferry during a school excursion, while another 37 family members boarded a coast guard ship that sailed to the scene of the disaster, marked by a lone buoy, and held a memorial at sea.
“Every single day of the 10 years has been painful, unbearable time,” Kim Jong-gi, who lost his daughter Soo-jin, said at the memorial, adding that those responsible for the disaster had yet to be held accountable.
Photo: Reuters
On the morning of April 16, 2014, the Sewol sank with 476 passengers and crew on board. Of the 304 people killed, 250 were students from the Danwon High School in Ansan.
The scenes of the 6,800-tonne vessel sinking on live TV stunned the country. Disbelief turned to outrage as it emerged the captain and crew had abandoned the ship, and that the children were told to stay in the cabin and wait for rescue.
Rescuers were slow to arrive and were largely ineffective when they got there. Coast guard officials were put on trial for negligence, but they were acquitted.
Photo: Reuters
Investigations found that the ship’s structure had been illegally modified and that it had been overloaded. When it went into a turn, the vessel’s speed and load caused it to capsize.
The captain is serving a life sentence and other members of the crew are also in jail. No one else has been prosecuted, an issue of contention for the victims’ families a decade on.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol offered his condolences.
“May the victims rest in peace, and I offer my deep condolences to the bereaved families,” he said.
Memorials were held throughout the country, including at the port of Mokpo in the south, where the wreckage of the Sewol is on display.
Over the years, some parents have staged plays to remember their children and cope with their grief, which some have likened to the loss faced by the families of the 159 mostly young people who died in a Halloween day crush two years ago.
Others continue to search for justice, and closure.
There have been a number of investigations and inquiries into the disaster, but the families say none have provided the answers they are seeking.
“Our demand is very simple. Accept responsibility, apologize and promise disasters like this won’t ever happen again,” said Park Seung-ryul, who leads an alliance of civic groups working to help the victims’ families’ search for justice.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS