A couple mourn the loss of their son in a street in the Itaewon district of Seoul where a crowd crush killed 150 people in October last year. Photograph: Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images
“It’s shrouded in mystery,” says Lee Jeong-min, the father of Lee Joo-young, 28, who died that night. “All we want to know is how and why our children died.”Kim Hee-jung remembers receiving a distressing call from her son’s phone, with an unfamiliar voice notifying her that her son was receiving CPR and urging her to rush to Itaewon.
Lee has been campaigning for the passage of a law requiring an independent investigation, and leads the campaign group Bereaved Families of Itaewon Tragedy Association. “One of the foremost reasons we’ve been persistently battling the government for nearly a year is our deep-seated suspicions and the pursuit of truth,” he says.allegations that an internal police report on awareness beforehand of the risk of the crush happening was destroyed.