Seoul Halloween Crush: One Year On, Victim Families Have No Official Apology

 

In Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood on October 29, 2022, a terrible crowd crush occurred during Halloween festivities, leaving 159 people dead. Most of the victims were children.

One of the first occasions in South Korea to take place without COVID-related limitations, it attracted sizable crowds eager to celebrate freedom once more.

The police investigated the incident in January and labeled it a “man-made disaster” due to a lack of preventative measures, such as crowd management and a delayed response.

One year after the incident, the relatives of the victims still don’t have an official apology, an impartial investigation, or any responsibility.

Since the tragedy, the victims’ kin have accused the government of using the victims as scapegoats by labeling them as drug users in an effort to transfer the blame.

They have expressed grave worries about how officials have disregarded their requests and avoided conducting an impartial investigation to determine blame and accountability.