hankyoreh

2.7km off Byeongpung Island

By Kim Oi-hyun and Seo Young-ji, staff reporters

The list of passengers on the Sewol, the passenger ferry that sank off Jindo in South Jeolla Province on Apr. 16, included five foreign nationals, including two ethnic Koreans from China.

Of the five, two were rescued, while three remain missing.

Two of the missing passengers are Lee Do-nam, 38, and Han Geum-hee, 37, an married ethnic Korean couple from China who were traveling to Jeju.

“My younger sister and her husband were on the ship, and now we don’t know if they’re alive or dead,” said Han’s sibling Yeong-hwa.

“They lived in Yanji before moving to South Korea about ten years ago,” Han added. “They were happy about the trip, and there was CCTV footage clearly showing them getting on the boat, but when I asked about it they said no Chinese passengers had been confirmed.”

“A picture came in at about 7:40 am on Apr. 16 with a message about how happy they were,” Han added anxiously. “That was the last I heard from them.”

China’s Xinhua news agency and other sources reported on Apr. 17 that Wu Yi, deputy head of the consular division for the Chinese embassy in Seoul, mentioned two Chinese nationals as being on board the Sewol when it went down. They also reported that the consular division was asking the South Korean government for confirmation on whether the two individuals were on board and information about whether they were alive or dead.

The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that it was investigating the matter after the two Chinese passengers were not found on the boarding list.

Chinese media reported that the couple had planned to bring their car with them to Jeju on the ferry, noting that while they did not register their names when purchasing tickets, the vehicle number was registered.

Also on board the Sewol were two Philippine nationals and a high school student from Russia. The passengers from the Philippines - 40-year-old singer Alexandria Cabras and 45-year-old Manio Emmanuel - were both rescued, while Serkov Vyacheslav Nikolayevich, an 18-year-old Russian national attending Danwon High School in Ansan, remains missing.

The Russian Foreign Ministry posted a message on its homepage on Apr. 17 reporting than a Russian citizen was on board the passenger ferry when it capsized.

“A student at Danwon High School with Russian citizenship is missing, while two individuals with Philippine citizenship were on board but were rescued,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Cho Tae-young confirmed on Apr. 17, adding that the countries’ embassies in South Korea had been notified.

“Our heartfelt condolences go out to the people who lost their lives in this terrible tragedy, and our hope is that the missing passengers will be rescued quickly,” he added.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]