Thousand Days Passed, the Truth Still Remains Hidden
"One thousand days after the incident, it’s all same to me. I am a grieving mother who is still living that day, begging for the life of my child,” said Lee Geum-hee.
A new year has arrived, but Lee is still swimming through the nightmare of the disaster that took place on April 16th, 2014.
A thousand days after the the sinking of the ferry Sewol, the disaster is still a controversy with survivors and victims’ families are saying they continue to suffer as their suspicions remain unanswered.
The sinking of the ferry killed 304 passengers, most of them being the students of Danwon High School in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, on a school excursion to the Jeju Island. Nine passengers still remain unaccounted for and the Sewol still lies on the seabed off the souther Jin Island.
January 9th, 2017 marked the 1000th day since the Sewol Ferry incident happened on April 16, 2014.
Civic groups hosted a commemorative event at Paengmok Harbor on Jin Island, and participants flew nine yellow kites with the names of the unaccounted individuals at 4:16 pm, with hopes that their remains will be recovered in the near future.
People also held discussions, calling for prompt salvaging of the Sewol Ferry to find the bodies and to inspect the ferry to help determine the exact cause of the sinking.
With continuous calling for prompt inspection of the Sewol Ferry, the progress of the investigation of the Sewol tragedy is extremely slow.
The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries initially said that it would complete the salvaging of the ferry by July 2016.
However, after failing to meet its initial goal, they pushed back the completion of the job several times, to before the end of 2016 and as of now to between April and June of 2017, citing weather conditions are bad and we currently have limited technology to make salvaging possible.
When will the government actually stand up and confidently reveal the truth of this disastrous incident that happened almost three years ago. Families and friends of those nine passengers who are missing still stands firm in the Pangmok Harbor waiting for their loss to come back home.