Wounds of Sewol disaster still deep

Bereaved family members of the Sewol ferry disaster victims look around Paengmok Harbor on Jindo, South Jeolla Province, the nearest port to the sinking, Friday, a day before the disaster's second anniversary. Two years after the sinking, the families say not much has been done to find the exact cause of the accident.
/ Korea Times photo by Seo Jae-hoon

By Kim Bo-eun

Two years after the Sewol ferry disaster, people remain divided over how to cope with the nation's deadliest peacetime maritime tragedy.

Not much has been determined about the exact cause of the sinking, with the Special Investigation Commission's investigation still ongoing.

The disaster of the sinking ferry which killed more than 300 passengers ― mostly Danwon High School students on a school trip ― has become a political issue as bereaved family members and civic groups, as well as opposition parties, continue to demand that the government take responsibility for its poor capacity to deal with the accident.

The political stalemate has caused "Sewol fatigue" for a growing number of citizens, who say it is time to put the incident to bed and move on.

There are numerous online postings critical of the bereaved family members who have been staging a sit-in at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul. Postings read: "Now stop it. I'm sick of it," "Come on, it was only an accident," or "You should not take advantage of your children's death."

But rather than criticism, a larger number of people show indifference to the incident which to many is fading into oblivion.

However, the families and civic groups supporting the victims' families say little has changed since the tragedy occurred, with the truth about the disaster still a mystery and the government still avoiding responsibility.

Unresolved issues

For bereaved family members, remarks about having to move on are too painful for them to accept.

Time has not healed their grieving, as they still have not received a convincing explanation for why the accident occurred.

"I wish the month of April did not exist. I wish there were no cherry blossoms," Ms. Park, who lost her high school daughter, told The Korea Times days ahead of the disaster's second anniversary.

"I do not want monetary compensation. All I want to know is what caused the death of my daughter and the other victims," she said.

Parents of the Danwon High School victims take turns coming to Gwanghwamun Square from their hometown in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, for the sit-in protest that has been held since a few days after the disaster occurred.

What they want is "the exact truth" about the incident ― why the ferry sank, why the passengers were not rescued and how the poorly managed ferry had been operated. Going through time from inadequate rescue operations to post-accident issues, they have lost trust in the government, and the special act on investigating the Sewol disaster is not enough to discover the truth.

The Coalition 4.16 on the Sewol Ferry Disaster, a civic group, continues to collect signatures for revisions to the act, so that the current special commission can get law enforcement rights and adequate time for a proper investigation. The commission's investigation period is set to finish in June, while the salvaging of the ferry will begin next month and it will be hoisted out of the water by the end of July, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.

"We collected 60,000 signatures and petitioned for a revision to the act in February, but it was not passed in the provisional session of the National Assembly," a 4.16 Coalition official said. "We will continue to collect signatures."

The government has failed to respond to these demands, and public support is waning, but for bereaved family members, this is their only hope.

"Honestly, those who have not been through this cannot know how we feel," Park said. "We will continue to do what we can to discover what caused the disaster."

The Sewol tragedy killed 304 passengers as it sank off the coast of Jindo, an island of South Jeolla Province, en route to Jeju Island from Incheon. Nine bodies still remain unaccounted for.

The government was in hot water for its belated and inadequate response to the accident, which critics say resulted in the failure to save lives during critical timing of the sinking.

Prison sentences have been handed out to the captain of the ferry, crew members, the head of the ferry operator Chonghaejin Marine, the son of the late owner of Chonghaejin as well as a maritime police official, but other government officials responsible for the accident and the inadequate response remain unpunished.

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