by Yoo Seungki

SEOUL, April 16 (Xinhua) -- Memory has vividly lived among the bereaved families for one of South Korea's deadliest maritime disasters that killed 304 people, most of them high school students on a school trip to the southern resort island of Jeju.

"We can never forget the day. Crying out and sighing, we had to watch the sight of taking 304 lives of our children and citizens who could have been saved," Kim Jong-gi, father of the deceased high school student Kim Soo-jin, told foreign correspondents in Seoul on Monday, a day before the 10th anniversary of the Sewol ferry tragedy.

On April 16, 2014, the 6,825-ton passenger ferry Sewol sank off the southwestern coast near Jindo island, leaving trauma among the general public and triggering nationwide mourning for the victims.

"I feel very sorry for my daughter as she had only 18 short years to live ... I have managed to live with my memory of my daughter when she was younger and my imagination of how she would have been if she was to live her life until now," Kim said.

The bereaved families have endured a long painful time of 10 years with their memory of children and the empathy from neighbors, continuing to ask questions of why the ferry sank and why the victims were not rescued.

"We have been able to survive the past 10 years because of the support from citizens who watched the Sewol ferry disaster by themselves," said Kim Soon-gil, mother of the deceased student Jin Yun-hee.

"The bereaved families with the same pain have managed to hold out by crying and laughing together and recalling our children together," Kim noted.

Park Jeong-hwa, mother of the deceased student Cho Eun-jung, reminisced about the days when her daughter was dreaming of becoming a pharmacist, sharing her imagination that her daughter would have grown up as a beautiful lady if she were alive now.

"I miss and remember my daughter the most when I watch from behind the appearance of mothers and daughters shopping together and going to the market with their hands held," Park said with a light smile for her imagination and a tearful eye for the longing for her daughter.

Special investigation committees and prosecutors investigated and reinvestigated the cause of the deadly disaster, but the bereaved families still believed that it remained a long way to go for the truth behind the tragedy.

"Not everything that the victims desperately want to know has been disclosed. Even the cause of the sinking hasn't been clarified yet," said Kim, father of the deceased student Soo-jin.

The bereaved families demanded that further investigations should be conducted amid the full disclosure of relevant information about the ferry sinking, calling on the parliament to enact a law that allows victims to participate in an investigative body whenever disasters occur.

"The demand from our citizens is clear. The state should acknowledge its wrongdoings and make a formal apology," Park Seung-ryul, co-representative of the April 16 Coalition on the Sewol Ferry Disaster, said.

"The bereaved families and citizens remember the wrongdoings of the state. We hope that the power of the memory will continue to grow and expand," Park noted.

"I believe that memory is the power to change the future and is the greatest weapon of the socially disadvantaged who own nothing," said Lee Tae-ho, standing executive committee chairman of the April 16 Coalition on the Sewol Ferry Disaster.

Lee added that the committee's most popular slogan is "Memory is powerful." Enditem

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