SOUTH Koreans mourning the death of their teenage children in the country’s worst sea disaster in 44 years sailed on Wednesday (April 15) to the spot where the 6,800-tonne ferry remains under water, to mark a year since the sinking that killed more than 300 people.
A ship carrying about 200 family members made the hour-long trip to the site of the sinking, where they threw white chrysanthemums into the sea, before returning to the port which had served last year as a temporary morgue.
Parents sobbed as they called out the names of their dead children.
Many wore yellow, the color that was first a symbol of hope for the return of their children, then of mourning for the 304 who lost their lives or remain missing.
“I feel like I am going crazy, because I miss my daughter. I don’t know what could I say more. I miss her so much and it breaks my heart,” said Kim Chil-seong, a father of one of the students killed in the disaster.
“This makes me to imagine the moment when my child was killed without time to scream. It is still hard for me to understand what our beautiful children did wrong and why we should let them go,” said a mother of another student victim, Kim Jeong-hye.
The Sewol capsized while making a turn on a routine voyage to the holiday island of Jeju, leaving 304 people dead or missing and creating a crisis for the government of President Park Geun-hyeover its handling of the disaster.
The vessel was later found to be defective, with additions made to increase passenger capacity making it top-heavy and unstable.
More than two-thirds of the 476 passengers aboard the Sewol were students on a school trip. Only 172 of the ferry’s passengers and crew were rescued. Of the 304 confirmed dead or still listed as missing, 250 were school children. Many of them died trapped in the vessel following orders by the crew to stay in their cabins as it capsized and sank.
Public demands by victims’ families for the government to allow an independent investigation into the disaster have intensified in the weeks leading up to the anniversary. Victims’ families also want the ship to be raised, but the government has yet to decide on a plan for doing so. (Reuters)
