Flowers mark the spot along a path in Gwangju’s Wolgye area where two high school students were killed on May 5, 2026. (Yonhap)
High school students across Korea have begun issuing statements demanding stronger safety measures for students after a high school student in Gwangju was murdered while on her way home last week. “That day, my dear friend’s dream came to a senseless and heartbreaking end,” read part of a statement released Friday by the editorial board of the school magazine at Gyeongsin Girls’ High School in Gwangju. “The victim was my dear friend. She had a heart kinder than anyone else’s and dreamed of being an emergency medical technician and nurse to save lives,” the statement said. The statement kicked off a string of statements from high schools across Gwangju and around the country on the tragic death of their peer.Lee Bo-gyeong, 17, head editor of the school’s magazine who helped draft the statement, was a close friend of the victim, 17, who was fatally stabbed by a 24-year-old man while returning home Tuesday after studying until after midnight. Both Lee and the victim attended the same middle school. “That was her dream ever since middle school, and she continued to pursue it even in high school,” Lee Bo-gyeong told the Hankyoreh. “I wrote the statement in the hope that people will continue paying attention.”The student councils of high schools in the Gwangju region said they were spurred to issue statements of their own because of anxiety over the incident among the victim’s classmates and other students. “Friends around me say the world has grown far too dangerous,” said Lee Hyo-min, 18, a former editor of the Gyeongsin school magazine. “What kind of world do we live in where a high school student can’t safely make it home from a study café?”In a statement issued a day earlier, Lee Seung-jin, the class president of Gwangju Soongil High School, wrote, “Society must provide a clear answer as to why an innocent student had to die.” Speaking to the Hankyoreh, he said that the main topic of conversation among students at the moment is “having to come and go from school in fear.”In its own statement, the student council of Suwan High School declared, “Student safety is not subject to compromise.”Students from Chonnam Girls’ High School, Seolwol Girls’ High School and Sokcho Girls’ High School joined in with statements of solidarity.“The problem is that no proper measures were taken despite the perpetrator allegedly being reported for stalking two days beforehand,” a source from the Seolwol student council said. “I blame this tragedy on our society’s excessively complacent response to warning signs of a potential crime.”“We cannot view this incident as an isolated crime by an individual,” said Kim Hyo-jin, 17, the editor of the Sokcho Girls’ High School newspaper, in a statement. “We must all reflect on whether our society adequately addresses safety issues for vulnerable groups like women and young people, and if systems geared to detect signs of danger in advance and protect these groups are functioning properly.”By Ki Min-do and Son Ji-min, staff reportersPlease direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
