▲ Members of a number of organizations pay their respects to the victims of the Cheonan at Daejeon National Cemetery on Saturday.

The Cheonan Memory Committee and the Seoul area chapter of the Youth Committee of the National Unification Advisory Council took a group to Daejeon National Cemetery on Saturday in order to offer respects to the 46 victims of the Cheonan.

Mun Dong Hee of Youth and Students Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea, one of the student organizations represented on the Cheonan Memory Committee, explained, “The Cheonan sinking was obviously a North Korean attack, one that took precious lives away. We made this plan to pay our respects at the cemetery in order to remember their spirit of sacrifice and cultivate a sense of national security.”

One participant in the event, Cho Hyung Ki, who was in the ROK Navy with all the 46 deceased but did not sail on that fateful day, told The Daily NK, “When I heard about the incident, it was so shocking; I saw them every night in my dream.”

Offering flowers on a friend’s gravestone, he added, “The one I think about the most is Sergeant An Dong Yeop, my junior.”

▲ Messages expressing both sorrow and resolve pinned to a board erected at the cemetery.

▲ One family pays its respects to a lost loved one.