ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP
A journalist (right) walks among personal belongings recovered by police from the scene of the mob that killed more than 150 people in the Itaewon district.
SEOUL – Broken glasses, a filthy stuffed animal, blood-stained sneakers… Items recovered from the scene of the deadly Halloween stampede in Seoul, which killed at least 153 people including a Frenchman on October 29, constitute a poignant reminder of the young age of the missing victims.
The victims were mostly young revelers in their twenties. They died in their Halloween costumes, an event they had come to celebrate for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
The personal belongings of the victims stored with care
In the popular district of Itaewon, where the tragedy occurred, the police collected nearly a ton and a half of objects lost in the movement of the crowd. Families, who are carrying out the funerals of their loved ones this week, can now collect them from a gymnasium, itself briefly used to collect bodies there. The enclosure is now occupied by rows of personal effects, neatly arranged and individually numbered.
ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP
Hundreds of labeled and numbered garments.
A man, visibly upset, clutches a piece of clothing tightly to his chest as he examines other relics collected in Itaewon: photos from lost wallets, passports and even a Halloween wig. “Some families came and left in tears” with the personal belongings of their loved ones, told AFP a policeman present in the gymnasium.
ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP
Halloween costumes found.
“From June to November, class at 9:00 a.m.”can we read on a post-it left in a notebook with crumpled pages and stained with footprints.
ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP
Items found by police at the scene of the stampede in Seoul.
blood stained clothes
Inside the gymnasium, the police stored 260 clothes, sometimes pieces of Halloween costumes, and 256 pairs of shoes. Many objects are crumpled or soiled, and several shoes show bloodstains. While rescuers arrived on the scene and managed to extricate victims from the entanglement of bodies, shoes were misplaced and clothes torn for resuscitation to be carried out.
ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP
Blood-stained shoes recovered by the police from the scene of the crowd movement.
Authorities also recovered nearly 160 electronic devices from the scene of the stampede. Twenty pairs of AirPods headphones and many connected watches with sometimes torn bracelets are also on display. All objects have been carefully labelled, but only a few show the name of their former owner.
“We have collected as many items as possible in case they belong to the victims”, Seoul police officer Jang Young-sik told AFP. At least 26 of the victims were foreign nationals, notably from Iran, the United States or France.
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