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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS