Government spokesman Park Joon-Young pledged a thorough investigation and hunt for all those involved in the human trafficking after the arrests of the nine South Korean crew.

"This is a horrible and inhumanitarian crime," he said in a statement. "We will maintain close consultations with the Chinese government in the search for bodies and our investigaton."

"The government expresses regret and shock for the deaths of the 25 Chinese," he added.

"We feel deeply sorry because this unhappy incident happened in South Korea which respects human rights. We also express condolences to the bereaved families in China."

Park said the government would take steps to prevent a repeat and hunt down human trafficking organizations.

The apology came three days after the bodies of 25 would-be immigrants from China were dumped into waters near the southern port of Yosu, 320 kilometers (190 miles) south of Seoul.

Police said they were hunting a human smuggling ring based in Yosu.

"We are tracking down the members of the organized human trafficking ring involved in the case. They have all disappeared after the incident," an investigator at Yosu said.

The area around Yosu, dotted with many small islands, has become a long established route for illegal immigrants lured by the hope of getting work in South Korea.

Police said 60 people from China's Fujian, Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces started the trip on a Chinese boat on October 1 and were transferred at sea on to a South Korean fishing boat.

Only 35, including 11 ethnic Koreans, survived the journey. Most were arrested by police when they landed on an island near Yosu. The Chinese embassy has called for the speedy repatriation of the survivors, police said.

The 25 suffocated in a fish hold with no ventilation and were dumped overboard on Sunday night, investigators said. They had been hardly fed in the days they spent at sea. Patrol boats have searched in vain for the missing bodies.

The gruesome deaths highlighted the risks run by ethnic Koreans in China trying to get to South Korea.

The JoongAng newspaper quoted survivor Kim Man-Su, a 31-year-old ethnic Korean from Heilongjiang, as saying his group were taken by smugglers from the Chinese port of Ningbo in pursuit of the "Korean Dream."

"I thought if I slaved for two or three years, I could remarry and lead a happy life for my daughters," he said.

Kim, a farmer, is one of the 35 survivors now awaiting deportation.

He said the crew ordered them into the two fish holds on Sunday. The 35 survivors were in a larger water tank. The dead were all in a smaller tank. The crew attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in vain, he said.

Police refused to comment on a newspaper report that the crew had covered the lid of the tank with heavy fishing gear.

According to the justice ministry, 64,000 of the estimated 105,000 ethnic Koreans from China in South Korea were staying illegally.

Investigators say smugglers receive up to 10,000 dollars from each Chinese migrant.

(China Daily 10/11/2001)