SEOUL, The Navy held a remembrance ceremony Tuesday for sailors who were killed during the 2010 sinking of the Cheonan corvette by a North Korean torpedo attack in the Yellow Sea.
The 1,200-ton warship sank near the western Northern Limit Line (NLL), a de facto inter-Korean sea border, in March 2010, after a North Korean midget submarine fired a torpedo at it. The attack killed 46 sailors, while 55 others were rescued.
The ceremony took place on the 14th anniversary of the attack at the 2nd Fleet in Pyeongtaek, 60 kilometers south of Seoul, attended by bereaved family members and sailors who survived the incident, according to the Navy.
The participants toured the salvaged warship on display at the unit, as well as the new ROKS Cheonan frigate, which entered into service last year.
Commander Park Yeon-soo, the commanding officer of the frigate who served on the previous Cheonan at the time of the attack, vowed to protect the maritime border without fault.
“(I) will perfectly defend the NLL in the Yellow
Sea, with the mindset of heading into the front lines with all my comrades of the Cheonan,” Park said at the ceremony, according to the Navy.
After the ceremony, a group of bereaved family members held a press conference to condemn politicians who have denied the North was behind the 2010 attack, and called for enacting a special law to punish those who defame the sailors.
In May 2010, an international investigation team concluded the vessel went down after a North Korean torpedo attack, but some left-leaning critics raised questions about the conclusion.
Source: Yonhap News Agency