'We still don’t know how he died': For foreign families of Itaewon victims, grief persists and questions remain

Two years after the Itaewon tragedy, foreign families of victims continue to grapple with profound grief and unanswered questions as they seek closure and accountability.

A narrow alley in Itaewon, Yongsan District, central Seoul, where the deadly crowd crush occurred on Oct. 29, 2022, is marked as the October 29 Memorial Alley on Monday, a day before the second anniversary of the Itaewon tragedy. [NEWS1]

Oct. 29, 2022, began like any other Saturday for Ali Parakand, a 37-year-old Iranian who arrived in Seoul just two months earlier to begin a doctoral program in urban engineering at a Korean university.

“He went to Itaewon almost every Saturday to have dinner with his friends,” said Mahnaz Parakand, Ali’s aunt, during a video interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily last Wednesday.

“Ali told his mother he would send pictures and videos after meeting his friends in Itaewon,” she said.

That was the last time his mother heard from her son.

Ali was one of five Iranians who tragically died in the fatal crowd crush in a narrow alleyway in Itaewon, Yongsan District, central Seoul, on the night of Oct. 29, 2022.

The disaster claimed the lives of 159 people, including 26 foreigners from 14 countries. Iranians comprised the largest group of foreign victims.

Ali arrived in Korea in August 2022 to begin his Ph.D. program at Chung-Ang University. He chose to come to Korea despite having the opportunity to study in his home country or the United States.

Ali Parakand, left, and his aunt Mahnaz Parakand [MAHNAZ PARAKAND]

“Our family went from being the happiest to one filled with hopelessness and devastation,” Mahnaz said, breaking down in tears as she described the ongoing pain of losing her beloved nephew.

“Ali’s brother is still in denial about his death,” she added.

Two years have passed since the tragedy, but many questions remain unanswered for the Korean public and the foreign community.

The initial call hinting at “overcrowding” in the area was made at 6:34 p.m. that evening.

An estimated 100,000 people went to Itaewon for the first Halloween celebrations since major Covid-19 restrictions were lifted.

Police officers, who had been managing rallies near Yongsan earlier that afternoon, were dispatched to Itaewon after a call was made to the 119 hotline around 10:15 p.m.

The first group of riot police arrived at the scene at around 11:40 p.m., according to police records.

The initial absence of crowd control measures in and around the narrow alley was widely criticized as a key factor contributing to the tragedy. The lack of accountability among authorities in the aftermath sparked further backlash.

The foreign community further pointed out that the Korean government’s communication with the families of the foreign victims and improvement in safety communication were other areas needing attention.

Commemorative messages left by visitors of the memorial event held near City Hall in central Seoul on Saturday. [CHO JUNG-WOO]

“Relevant officials or police should be held accountable and see if they could have prevented the incident, as well as ensure they face appropriate punishments,” Mahnaz said.

“A clear explanation of why such a tragedy occurred must also be provided to the families and the public.”

Limitations in support for foreigners

When Ali’s family received his body in Tehran, all they got back were the clothes he was wearing that night and an empty bag.

“We couldn’t find his watch, phone, passport, student ID or credit cards,” Mahnaz said.

“We still don’t know how Ali died,” she added, noting that the death certificate they received only stated he died on Oct. 30 from suffocation.

She questioned why his death was recorded on Oct. 30 when the crowd crush happened around 10 p.m. the previous day. The precise cause of his death — whether due to lack of oxygen or injuries from being crushed — remains unclear.

“The Korean government hasn’t provided any details about his death,” she said, adding that they haven’t received any documents from the hospital where Ali was taken.

Ali Parakand, right, his aunt Mahnaz Parakand, center, and his grandmother [MAHNAZ PARAKAND]

During the interview, Mahnaz expressed her frustration, saying it was “shameful” that the Korean government did not provide more assistance to the foreign victims after the tragedy.

Apart from $22,000 — the amount provided after deducting the cost of repatriating Ali's body to Tehran — the family has not received any other financial, administrative or personal support from the Korean government.

According to Mahnaz, some families living farther from Tehran received smaller amounts due to higher repatriation costs.

As of December 2022, a total of 15 million won ($11,000) in funeral fees and 20 million won in relief payments were made to the families of the 26 foreign victims, according to the Yongsan District Office, which handled the compensation applications at the time.

Korean victims were given the same amount.

In November 2022, Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that foreign victims’ families would receive the same support as Korean families.

However, apart from funeral costs and relief payments, there have been no specific provisions for psychological support or medical subsidies unless the families reside in Korea.

The psychological support services, open to anyone affected by the incident, saw no foreign users, at least in Yongsan District, according to a district official.

“The Korean government should show the same respect to the families of foreign victims as they do to Korean families,” Mahnaz said, stressing the need for information about the tragedy and ongoing investigations to be shared.

“No government officials contacted us, aside from the Korean Ambassador to Iran, who showed up once at the airport when the body was repatriated.”

According to Mahnaz, families of foreign victims rely on updates from the bereaved families’ association in Korea or access Korean media through translation services to stay informed.

Bereaved families of the Itaewon tragedy watch a performance held as part of a memorial event near City Hall in central Seoul on Saturday. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

“The families should be reached out to directly instead of waiting for them to make requests,” said Cho In-young, an attorney at Gonggam Human Rights Foundation who works for the victims’ families of the tragedy.

Cho said that embassies have contact information for the victims’ families, according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.

Foreign families have been requesting information on developments in Korea regarding the tragedy, but currently there are no established channels for them to make such requests, Cho said.

“There was no one in charge of helping these families at the Foreign Ministry after the bodies were repatriated,” the attorney added.

Foreigners read messages posted by visitors of the joint memorial altar, previously located at Seoul Plaza in central Seoul, on June 16. [NEWS1]

Korea’s Foreign Ministry said it assigned officials to assist the families of each foreign victim so they could receive the support they were entitled to. However, this aid ended after 33 days when the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, under the Interior Ministry, wrapped up its operations.

A Foreign Ministry official told the Korea JoongAng Daily that the ministry is willing to seek additional support for foreign victims’ families if requested by other authorities, though no such requests have been made recently.

Communication barriers

Ethan Strickler, a graduate of Yonsei University’s Graduate School of International Studies, vividly recalls the tragic night. As president of the university's student association at the time, Strickler was responsible for ensuring the safety of his classmates.

“We have around 500 students in our program, and it was even harder to contact some of them because they didn’t have KakaoTalk or any other way to reach out,” Strickler told the Korea JoongAng Daily last Tuesday, referring to Korea’s popular messaging service.

“Not all international students have Korean phone numbers either.” The school had to resort to emails to confirm everyone’s safety.

The Itaewon crowd crush deeply affected many international students who had come to Korea believing it was a safe place.

“Foreigners didn’t want to go to Itaewon for a long time after that,” Strickler said.

“It also made me worry for my friends whenever they went out to popular, crowded places like Gangnam or Hongdae.”

Strickler felt that more safety measures could be implemented to make foreigners feel safer.

People gather for a memorial event held next to the City Hall illuminated in purple in central Seoul on Saturday. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

One issue he highlighted was that safety alerts sent to residents’ phones are mostly in Korean.

“A few months after the tragedy, there was a faulty government message about a North Korean missile test,” he recalled.

“The message was only in Korean, so I had to quickly reassure many students that there was nothing to worry about.”

In May last year, the Seoul Metropolitan Government mistakenly sent out a public safety alert labeled as a “wartime alert,” advising people to prepare for evacuation.

The first safety alert, sent nearly two hours after the crowd crush occurred, advised people to avoid the area near Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon due to an emergency. This message, too, was only in Korean.

To address the issue, the government announced plans to include some English terms in safety alerts starting in February.

However, these messages remain largely in Korean. For example, earthquake alerts now include the word “earthquake” and the magnitude in English to at least hint at the nature of the alert for foreigners.

An official from the Interior Ministry said it is “technologically possible” to send alerts in multiple languages. However, doing so would result in residents receiving multiple alerts in different languages, as these messages are sent “unilaterally from base stations” to people’s phones.

People read display boards explaining the Itaewon crowd crush during a memorial event held near City Hall in central Seoul on Saturday. [CHO JUNG-WOO]

Instead, translations of these alerts are available through the Emergency Ready App, which expanded from two to five languages in August. The app now supports Vietnamese, Thai and Japanese, in addition to English and Chinese.

According to the Interior Ministry, the app’s total users remained at around 110,000 as of last month — a low number given the record 2.46 million foreign residents in Korea as of November 2023.

The challenges of effectively communicating safety information to foreigners highlight the need for improvements to prevent similar incidents in the future.

In the interview, Mahnaz also expressed hope that the Korean public would remember the tragedy, emphasizing its significance in potentially bringing change to the country's crowd management policies and safety measures.

Remembering the tragedy

A sea of purple filled Seoul Plaza in central Seoul on Saturday afternoon as bereaved families of the Itaewon tragedy, politicians and citizens gathered to remember the 159 people who lost their lives in the deadly crowd crush.

Purple was the color the bereaved families chose as a symbol of both their grief and their collective pursuit of official redress.

The memorial event, attended by some 5,000 people, began at 6:34 p.m., the time the first report of overcrowding was made to the 112 police hotline on the day of the tragedy.

Lee Jeong-min, the leader of an association for the bereaved families, speaks during a memorial event held near City Hall in central Seoul on Saturday. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

“The emptiness left by the absence of a beloved family member is something that nothing can ever fill,” said Lee Jeong-min, a leader of an association for the bereaved families who lost his daughter in the tragedy, during his speech at the event.

“Why, for what reason, do we have to say goodbye to our children like this?”

Attendees listened to Lee’s words in silence under the dark autumn sky, holding purple balloons and wearing purple ribbons to commemorate the tragedy.

The day of commemoration began earlier with a religious memorial service near Exit No. 1 of Itaewon Station, followed by a memorial march from Itaewon Station to the presidential office, Seoul Station and finally Seoul Plaza.

Lee said he hoped the memorial event could offer the families of foreign victims “even a small measure of comfort.”

“We know well that their pain is no different from ours,” he said.

From second from left: Democratic Party floor leader Park Chan-dae, People Power Party floor leader Choo Kyung-ho, the leader of an association for the bereaved families Lee Jeong-min and Australian victim Grace Rached's mother Joan Rached pay silent tribute during a memorial event held near City Hall in central Seoul on Saturday. [NEWS1]

The family of Grace Rached, a 23-year-old Australian who was among the foreign victims, also attended Saturday’s event.

“Dear Grace, I can’t picture you beyond the 23 years you lived to the fullest,” said Grace’s mother, Joan Rached, reading aloud from a letter to her daughter.

“You were just beginning to live your dreams, and I never doubted that you would fulfill them.”

As she read her letter in English, some in the audience began to tear up.

A person passes by the Oct. 29 memorial alley in Itaewon, Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Oct. 21. [NEWS1]

Grace’s mother shared how a scholarship was created in her daughter’s honor in February 2023 through a collaboration between her last workplace and her university. Grace had worked as a film production assistant in Sydney.

“Until just a couple of months ago, you were winning awards for your accomplishments in the production industry," she said. "I only wish you were here to celebrate these successes with your peers. Instead, we are left with the pieces of honoring you.

“I miss you. I have no doubt that you are with our Lord and pray that you are at peace. I love you.”

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]