Families of those killed in the April ferry disaster staged a rally in front of the legislature on Wednesday, shouting aloud their grievances at President Park Geun-hye.

The president was visiting the parliament to make an annual policy speech.

But Park, who has been known to be “frosty” to her critics, appeared to continue her policy of staying quiet on the Sewol accident, as she walked into the National Assembly building without acknowledging the protesters.

The families were lined up next to the parliament’s main doors and holding yellow pickets, apparently waiting for the president to appear.

Once Park arrived on the scene, the families yelled derisively at her. They said she had broken her promise to hold face-to-face meetings with the families to discuss a potential investigation into the government’s botched rescue operations on the day of the disaster.

On Wednesday, Park silently walked away, heading towards the main chamber to make her speech, during which she made no mention of the ferry accident. The government’s top executive, however, did vow to strengthen national safety standards.

Families said they had been expecting the president to remain aloof, but appeared disappointed.

Park in May had said she would meet the families “any time they wished,” in a nationally televised speech only one month after the sinking of the Sewol ferry, which has left 295 dead and nine still missing.

“Do you have a child?” one protesting mother whose child had died in the Sewol accident asked a member of the Presidential Security Service. Security officials had formed a human cordon around the protesters as part of increased security measures for the presidential visit.

Wearing black suits and armed with handguns under their jackets, the presidential bodyguards did not answer the mother, keeping their eyes on the trees in the distance. Hundreds of other law enforcement officials were patrolling the verdant grounds of the national legislature in Seoul as part of a bodyguard detail for Park.

The Sewol disaster has rocked a nation that prides itself on its phenomenal economic success since rising from the ashes of the Korean War in 1953.

Ongoing investigations into the accident have identified cronyism among public officials and a general disregard for basic safety measures as the root causes of the disaster.

Victims of the 6,800-ton ferry Sewol’s sinking in waters off the southwest coast were mostly teenagers on a school trip.

Families of the victims have since been leading a social movement calling for an in-depth government probe that will expose alleged chronic corruption. Critics of the families, however, have accused them of aligning with left-leaning civic activists and unnecessarily politicizing the Sewol accident.

By Jeong Hunny (hj257@heraldcorp.com)