Im Young-ae and her husband, a crew member who survived the Sewol ferry disaster, had dreamed of a peaceful retirement by the sea until their lives were upended by the April tragedy.
Their new house is finished and Im has moved in, but she is living in virtual isolation with her adult daughter.
As Im's husband serves a five-year jail term for negligence over the ferry's sinking, she, like the loved ones of other surviving crew members, is being treated as a pariah amid outrage in South Korea over the deaths of 304 people, mostly teenagers, on the doomed boat.
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