Families of the Itaewon Disaster Victims Ask, “What Did This Country Do for the Safety of Its People? Answer Us!”

Buried Forever in Our Hearts: The families of the Itaewon Halloween crowd crush victims cry holding pictures of their loved ones at a press conference to announce their position at the Lawyers for a Democratic Society office in Seocho-gu, Seoul on November 22. Mun Jae-won

“I cried beating my chest out of frustration and sorrow, which crushed my heart, but my tear-soaked heart is full of longing and nostalgia. When you were born and your father held you in his arms for the first time, you were warm. Holding you, now a bundle of warm ashes, in my arms on a bus to send you away, I so much regret not having held you more often. Leave behind all the pain, suffering, and sadness of this world, and take courage and farewell. I’m so grateful you were my daughter. I love you.”

On November 22, the bereaved families of the Itaewon Halloween disaster held a press conference in the office of the Lawyers for a Democratic Society and announced their position as the families of the October 29 Itaewon crowd crush victims. This was the first official press conference by the victims’ families.

When they took a moment of silence in memory of the victims, the sound of family members sobbing rang throughout the conference room.

A, the father of Yi Sang-eun (25) who died that night, read a letter to his daughter. “You have no idea how delighted I was when I heard your voice telling me, ‘Dad, I passed,’ after passing the AICPA exam. The day I let you go, a text message came with good news from the company you so wanted to join, but you cannot go now.” A cried, “I want to ask this country, what did this country do for the lives and safety of its people? Now give us an answer.”

B, the mother of Yi Nam-hun, another victim, said, “When it’s 5:30 a.m., your morning alarm still rings (on your cell phone). If I had known that you would go so pointlessly, I would have held you more, chatted with you more. I should have told you I loved you every day. I should have touched your face one more time,” with tears in her eyes. B raised Yi’s death certificate and sobbed as she said, “It says the time of death is ‘estimated,’ and the cause of death is ‘unknown.’ Our family must know what the cause of my son’s death is.” She continued and asked, “Shouldn’t we at least know at what moment he died, who helped, whether he received CPR, whether he died on his way to the hospital?”

C, the mother of Gim In-hong, a victim from Vienna, Austria, shared the story of how her son, a foreign national, died after coming to Korea to study at a language institute of a Korean university in search of his Korean identity. C said, “I had to have details on my son’s time of death notarized, and it took me six days to finish the process,” and let out her frustration.

The victims’ families criticized the government and public officials who showed a lukewarm response despite the fact they had prior knowledge that a large crowd would gather. D, the father of another victim, Song Eun-ji, said, “From 6:34 p.m., four hours before the incident, 112 calls poured in with people saying, ‘I think we’re going to get crushed,’ ‘You need to control the situation,’ and ‘It’s hard to breathe,’ but the police concluded the situation claiming, ‘no special issues.’” He argued, “This was negligent homicide due to a lack of safety awareness in general from the top all the way down to the bottom.”

He continued and said, “I would like to ask Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min, who lied and rattled that it wasn’t a problem that could have been solved by assigning officers from the police and fire department beforehand; the Yongsan-gu district mayor Park Hee-young, who insisted she never received a report; the Yongsan police chief Lee Im-jae; and Ryu Mi-jin, who was in charge of the 112 situation room, what you were doing when the lives of our lovely sons and daughters were dying away.”

E, the mother of actor Lee Ji-han, a victim, also said, “This tragedy was a man-made disaster, which occurred because of a poor initial response, murder due to a failure to act.” E read a letter addressed to President Yoon Suk-yeol. She wrote, “If you cannot save 158 young lives, then who should the 50 million citizens trust?”

One family pointed out that the government never collected the requests of the victims’ families. Yi Jong-gwan, the father of the late Yi Min-a (25), said, “I don’t think the government properly did what it should have done after the disaster,” and explained, “They did not organize a gathering of the victims’ families or provide a space for us to recover mental stability. They didn’t even take basic measures, such as explain to us how the disaster occurred and the status on how they were handling the situation or inform us of the victim’s basic rights.” Yi further said, “It is the families of other victims like us who can best sympathize with what we are going through and can best comfort us,” and added, “They were so fast to hand out money for the funeral and compensation, yet they didn’t provide us with a space for the victims’ families to gather, which we really needed, for over 24 days.” He also pointed out that the reason they argued over the release of the victims’ names to the public was because the government did not provide a space for the families to meet.

On Tuesday, the bereaved families of 34 victims of the Itaewon disaster formally made six requests to the government: a sincere apology from President Yoon Suk-yeol, an investigation and reprimand of the people responsible for the poor response, the participation of victims in the process of investigating the truth and identifying responsibility, an opportunity for victims’ families to communicate with survivors, a memorial facility for the victims, and an official announcement on the government’s responsibility in the disaster.