Chinanews.com, April 16 (Gantian, Liu Xu, Jiang Chunyu) "I am the mother of Zhao Enjing, Class 9 of the second grade. So far, my daughter is still in my mind wearing a high school uniform. If she were alive now, she would be 28 years old, and she would be a beautiful girl, right?" Park Jung-hwa, who lost her daughter in the shipwreck of the Sewol in South Korea, said with tears in her eyes.
The picture shows Park Jung-hwa, the bereaved of the shipwreck of the South Korean "Sewol". Photo by Jiang Chunyu
April 16, 2024, is the 10th anniversary of the Sewol shipwreck. On this day, mourning activities were held in many places in South Korea. Countless people are still asking: What is the root cause of the shipwreck, who is responsible for the loss of life, and has South Korea really become safer?
Mourning: "Remember and not forget"
The Sewol shipwreck is one of South Korea's worst maritime disasters. On April 16, 2014, the Sewol cruise ship with 476 people on board was passing through the waters off Jindo-gun, Jeollanam-do, when it suddenly tilted badly and sank.
What is particularly shocking to the outside world is that the captain and crew of the ship asked passengers not to move through the radio at that time, but they themselves escaped on the coast guard speedboat, causing many people to lose their last chance to survive.
After several days of searching, the body was recovered and brought ashore, and it was finally confirmed that 304 people were killed in the accident, including 261 sophomores and teachers at Danyuan High School.
Ten years on, the grief of losing a loved one has never subsided, and the search for the truth continues.
In the past few days, mourning activities have been held in various parts of South Korea. Early in the morning of April 16, 2024, the bereaved families of the victims boarded the Shanghai Guard guard ship and headed to the area where the incident occurred. One by one, they called out the names of the 304 victims, laid wreaths and observed a moment of silence in their honor.
At a memorial service held in Bupyeong-gu, Incheon, Jeon Tae-ho, president of the Association of the Bereaved Families of the Victims, also expressed his grief. "Remembering, not forgetting, is the first thing we do," he said. Regrettably, however, despite the fact that 10 years have passed since the disaster, there are still only the victims, and the perpetrators have not been identified. ”
Data map: On March 28, 2017 local time, in Jindo, South Korea, people mourned the victims of the "Sewol".
The Mist: They're still searching for the truth
In fact, over the years, although many rounds of investigations have been launched around the "Sewol" tragedy, it is still difficult to determine what the truth is.
In 2018, the South Korean government's Sewol Hull Investigation Committee released a report analyzing the cause of the wreck. However, to the disappointment of South Korean society, the report did not give a conclusive conclusion on the cause of the crash, but put forward two possibilities: one is that the internal cause of the ship's hull defect is the second is that it does not rule out external causes, which need further investigation.
At the same time, criminal trials against the crew of the Sewol and the Coast Guard have been concluded.
Among them, in November 2015, the Supreme Court of South Korea made a final judgment against the captain of the "Sewol", Li, upholding the result of the second trial and sentencing him to life imprisonment and convicting him of homicide.
Nine officials, including Kim Seok-kyun, then director of the Maritime Police Agency, Choi Sang-hwan, former deputy chief of the Coast Guard, Kim so-hyun, former director of the West Coast Guard, and Lee Chun-jae, former director of the Coast Guard, were eventually found not guilty in 2023 despite being prosecuted by prosecutors for negligence causing death despite allegedly failing to take adequate rescue measures.
According to South Korean media statistics, a total of 12 coast guards were prosecuted on suspicion of rescue failures, but only one was found guilty, namely Kim Kyung-il, captain of patrol boat No. 123 of the Mokpo Marine Police Agency, who was sentenced to three years in prison.
Data map: The search site of the hull of the shipwreck "Sewol". Image source: Visual China
On April 15, 2024, at the symposium on the 10th anniversary of the Sewol tragedy, the bereaved families of the victims once again expressed their dissatisfaction with the outcome of the accident.
Kim Jong-ki, a representative of the bereaved family, said, "Only part of the contents of the audits by intelligence agencies such as the National Intelligence Service have been disclosed, and victims and citizens are requesting information disclosure." ”
On behalf of the bereaved families, Kim Jong-gi also put forward a number of demands, including: "The information on the Sewol accident should be fully disclosed and further truth investigation should be conducted; those responsible for the "Sewol" shipwreck should be severely punished so that they cannot be used again, and the basic law on life safety should be enacted and the right to safety should be written into the law.
On April 15, 2024, the Seoul Foreign Correspondents' Club held a symposium to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Sewol tragedy. Photo by Jiang Chunyu
Follow-up: Has South Korean society become safer?
After the Sewol tragedy, the South Korean government promised to rectify the situation and set April 16 as "National Safety Day" every year.
Has South Korean society become safer today? To what extent has the problem of accumulated malpractices been resolved? On 16 April, the Hankyoreh Ilbo commented that a society that does not learn the lessons of the tragedy will never be safe.
The report pointed out that 10 years have passed, and the security situation in South Korean society has actually not improved for a long time. According to a survey conducted by the Center for Emergency Technology Policy Research at Dong-A University in South Korea, 60 percent of respondents believe that South Korea is "unsafe."
The "4 16 Alliance", a civic group related to the "Sewol", recently disclosed that the South Korean Special Investigation Committee on Social Tragedy had put forward 54 recommended measures after completing its investigation, but the South Korean government only fulfilled one of them - improving the marine disaster search and rescue system.
On April 16, 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol expressed his condolences to the victims of the Sewol accident and expressed his deep condolences to the bereaved families of the victims while presiding over the State Council meeting at the Yongsan Presidential Office. He also instructed that it is necessary to be proactive in guarding against the various risks that may arise.
Former South Korean President Moon Jae-in also published a memorial article, saying that "even after ten years, the shock and sadness of that day will not disappear."
Moon wrote, "I hope that the recommendations of the Special Commission for the Investigation of Social Tragedy, which have not yet been implemented, will be implemented as soon as possible." We will always empathize with the pain and share hope. Move beyond painful and sad memories and join hands towards a safer world. (END) (The third author of this article is an intern)