Human Rights Commission Urges Prime Minister for Additional Search of Stella Daisy Ship

Families of the missing crew members of the Stella Daisy were preparing for a rally urging the search for the missing crew in front of the Cheongunhyoja-dong Community Center near the Blue House in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on May 16, 2017. Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] The National Human Rights Commission, which reviewed the human rights violation complaint filed by the families of the missing crew members of the Stella Daisy for about 1 year and 6 months, expressed the opinion to the Prime Minister that "additional deep-sea searches are necessary."

On the 2nd, the Human Rights Commission announced that at the full committee meeting on the 23rd of last month, it deliberated and resolved to dismiss the complaint case raised by the Stella Daisy Countermeasure Committee. However, it conveyed the opinion to the Prime Minister that "additional deep-sea searches are necessary to determine the cause of the sinking and recover the remains of the missing."

Earlier, the Countermeasure Committee filed a complaint against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in March of last year, claiming that the government discovered the remains of the crew during the first deep-sea search but left them unattended, violating human dignity. After the Human Rights Commission accepted the complaint but failed to reach a conclusion for over a year, the committee also met with Chairperson Choi Young-ae of the National Human Rights Commission in April.

A representative of the Countermeasure Committee criticized the dismissal decision by the Human Rights Commission as "a typical passive move to evade responsibility," but also stated that they will request a meeting with Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum, who was designated as the addressee of the opinion statement.

The Stella Daisy sank in the South Atlantic in March 2017 while carrying 260,000 tons of iron ore from Brazil to China. Twenty-two people, including eight Koreans, went missing in the accident. The government failed in the deep-sea search to confirm the missing persons in February 2019 and was criticized by human rights organizations for discovering remains but not recovering them.

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