2022 South Korea Halloween crush: A year after tragedy, victims' kin demand special probe

On Oct 29, 2022, a Halloween event in South Korea's capital city Seoul turned fatal after 159 people were killed in a stampede due to crowding. A year later, families of the victims have demanded a special investigation into the tragedy. According to a report by the news agency Associated Press on Monday (Oct 30), the families visited the Itaewon area, laid flowers and offered condolences at an alley where the stampede occurred.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you. I loved you,” Song Jin Young, 55, the father of one of the victims, said. The report said that the families attended multi-faith prayer services in Itaweon for their loved ones.

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Families demand safety minister's resignation

While attending the prayer services, the families chanted slogans asking South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to offer a more sincere apology and demanded the resignation of Safety Minister Lee Sang-min.

“Apologise! Apologise!” the families shouted before they arrived at a square in Seoul for a memorial service. In a speech, Lee Jeong-min, a representative for the families, urged President Yoon to support efforts to legislate a special law to open an independent investigation into the disaster.

“We did our utmost to raise our children but we couldn’t even touch them when they vanished all of sudden. Where can we talk about our resentment toward this reality?” Lee said.

Lee pointed out that the special law would be the most important legislation to find the cause of the stampede and also discuss the prevention of similar disasters.

Several opposition leaders criticised Yoon for failing to attend the memorial service, which ended with the crowd shouting “We’ll remember you” when names of each of the 159 victims, mostly in their 20s and 30s, were called.

Top-level officials not charged

An invitation was given to the president to attend the ceremony, but he instead appeared at a service for the victims at a church in Seoul. Yoon's office did not mention his absence (from the memorial), but local media said it was because of concerns that the event could be politically used by his rivals.

In January, a special probe by the police concluded that police and municipal officials had failed to formulate effective crowd control steps despite correctly anticipating a huge number of people in Itaewon.

As per investigators, police also ignored hotline calls by pedestrians who warned of crowding before the stampede started.

Currently, over 20 police and other officials are on trial. However, the report said that no top-level officials have been charged- which is one of the reasons why the victims' families have demanded a probe.

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