Tuesday 11 June 2013

Sri Lankan Health Ministry to speed up postmortem of monsoon victims


The Health Ministry has made arrangements to speed up postmortems of fishermen to hand over their bodies to their families quickly, government media reported.

According to Health Ministry spokesman quoted by the government media steps have been taken to send a special team of judicial medical officers to Balapitiya Hospital to speed up the postmortems on 21 fishermen whose bodies are lying at the Balapitiya Hospital.

The team of judicial officers will complete postmortems and release the bodies to their families as soon as possible. The Injured fishermen are currently receiving treatment at state hospitals according to reports.

Tuesday 11 June 2013

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/latest/34395-health-ministry-to-speed-up-postmortem-of-fishermen.html

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Mumbai building collapse: rescue operations called off


After 24 hours, search and rescue operations at Mumbai's Altaf Manzil have been called off. Over this period, 10 lives were lost and five people are injured, recovering in hospitals.

The five-storey building came crashing down on Monday evening after heavy rains in the city. Teams from the Disaster Control Department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Mumbai Fire Brigade and the National Disaster Response Force were called in soon after.

The building housed the residence of noted criminal lawyer Rizwan Merchant. While Merchant's daughter and elder son survived, his younger son, wife and mother died. Their bodies were retrieved today from the debris.

24-year-old law student Gaylen Bowen considers himself lucky. He and his family missed death by a few minutes. They were out for dinner and were delayed in getting back home. "I am glad to have survived. I was convinced to stay on and have dinner with my family instead of coming back early to sleep. I feel very sad for those who couldn't make it through. It really breaks my heart that I grew up in this same building and now it's collapsed. I would like to thank the stars I am alive today because god knows how would I made it through had I come just 10 minutes when building collapsed," Gaylen told NDTV.

The civic body has declared 946 building in the city unsafe, after a pre-monsoon survey of dilapidated buildings. But it is at a loss to explain how a building that was not even on the list collapsed. Mayor Sunil Prabhu said "We will ascertain the cause of the collapse later. Saving lives is our top most priority." Locals claim that the collapse could have been caused due to an illegal construction in the lower floor of the building. However top sources in the BMC said, they weren't aware of any complaint against any illegal construction.

With the monsoons just starting, Mumbaikars are hoping that the season will pass off without any more tragedies. Meanwhile, Mahim, an area famous for its fresh kebabs is now in a shroud of gloom. Tuesday 11 June 2013

http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/mumbai-building-collapse-rescue-operations-called-off-378339

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Mass grave found in Erbil


Official sources from the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs announced on Monday June 3 in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region in north Iraq, excavating the remains of a mass grave, including five bodies, in a cemetery known as "Asphalt Plant". The date of killing the victims goes back to end of the 80s of the last century.

Official sources from the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs announced on Monday June 3 in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region in north Iraq, excavating the remains of a mass grave, including five bodies, in a cemetery known as 'Asphalt Plant'. The date of killing the victims goes back to end of the 80s of the last century.

The KRG's Minister of Martyrs, Aram Ahmed, told Kurdish media outlets that: ?Five remains out of six have so far found. There are evidences that they were executed by the Iraqi former regime?s North Security Office in Erbil. There are also indications that they were tortured before shot to death and being executed. The remains go back to 1988.

The victims had been identified, the minister said, by their clothes and the bodies will be sent to forensic institution to take sample from their buns and DNA.

?Out of the five bodies, three were shot dead in the head. The excavating team will continue seeking more remains.

The remains were found after two days of nonstop working in a drilling operation launched by a joint team which included the Iraqi Federal Ministry of Human Rights, the KRG's Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs as well as the Federal and Regional Ministries of Health. The initiated drilling process supervised by the International Committee on Missing Persons (ICMP).

The process of digging out the mass graves and identifying the victims, might take decades and it is because of its scope and difficult terrain that includes landmines and unexploded ordinance, requires a highly experienced personnel that does not exist in Iraq.

The bodies are believed to be the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's (PUK) members. Son of one of the victims said that the families of the dead people informed the ministry about the grave. He added that they knew of the grave since a long time and they uncovered it in 1992 but they could not identify the bodies.

It is expected that the mass grave will be registered in Iraq's Supreme Court as one of the crimes committed by the Iraqi former regime against the Kurdish people.

?Uncovering such mass graves is internationally very significant. The government has to struggle to recognize such crimes in the international institutions in order not to be repeated once again,? the Minister said.

Parwin Nuri, a member of the joint team, said that on the first day of initiating the drilling process the team found some evidences that there might be more mass graves nearby.

A member of the team, which was from the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights, said that the families of the victims have to be financially and psychologically compensated.

A PUK official in Erbil said that the victims were his party's members and they were in charge of organizing the PUK's political secret activities at that time. He said the bodies belong to each Mohsen al-Khayat, Mohammed Jawhar , Nourddine , Tahsin Darkala and Hassan Abu Shwareb.

The Iraqi former brutal regime was accused of murdering hundreds of thousand Iraqis, especially the Kurds and Shiites, during its rule, lasting for approximately three consecutive decades. Many of whom were buried in mass graves, while, part of them have so far not found.

Saddam Husseins regime launched eight brutal campaigns under the name of Anfal against the Kurdish people. It begun in 1987 and ended in 1988. The number of the people murdered in the campaigns is estimated to be around 180,000. The regime also destructed about 3,000 Kurdish villages during the campaign. More than ten thousands of people displaced from their houses too.

Tuesday 11 June 2013

http://www.kurdishglobe.net/display-article.html?id=21A30116004D3E46ABD4076C56372AFD

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Australia justifies abandoning asylum-seeker corpses in ocean


Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard defended her government's decision to leave the bodies of 13 drowned asylum-seekers in the ocean following criticism more would have been done had they been Australians.

An extensive three-day air and sea search for an asylum-seeker boat, which is presumed to have capsized near Christmas Island with at least 55 people on board last week, did not find any survivors. Up to 13 bodies were seen in the water, along with debris and life-jackets, but they were not recovered and customs officials said they were now too busy rescuing other boats, AFP reports.

“That is a very tough decision but it is an operational decision,'' Gillard said.

“As border command has made clear, they always put the highest priority on saving lives and I think we would all understand why that's got to come first in any tasking or any work that border command does.''

Australia's Tamil minority community criticized the move, saying there would be anger if the bodies of Australian victims were left in the remote waters off the Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island.

“If they were Australians I am sure that I would be angry,'' Bala Vigneswaran, executive officer of the Australian Tamil Congress, told the ABC.

“I'm sure that everybody here in Australia would be very disappointed and I don't think we would have treated Australians like this.''

Asked about this criticism, Gillard said Australia would “always put the highest priority on saving lives''.

The doomed vessel was one of several arriving over the past week, with seven boats carrying a total of about 500 people intercepted since Wednesday, including one carrying more than 90 people which sought assistance near Christmas Island.

Tuesday 11 June 2013

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=37433&icid=a&d_str=

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All 121 victims of Jilin poultry factory fire identified


DNA tests of 121 victims of a poultry plant fire in northeast China's Jilin Province have been completed, with names of the victims being released, a local rescue command center said on Monday.

The victims died in the blaze, which broke out at the Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry Company on June 3.

The fire also injured 77 people, 26 of whom have been discharged from hospital. One person died in hospital.

As of Monday morning, 2,600 tonnes of poultry products stored in freezers at the scene have been safely disposed of and epidemic prevention and sterilization work has been completed.

Tuesday 11 June 2013

http://www.ecns.cn/2013/06-10/68042.shtml

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Fishing for corpses in Colombia's Sanquianga river


Located in a remote corner of Colombia's southern Narino province not far off the Pacific Coast, the village of Bocas de Satinga relies on its riverside location for transport.

Everything arrives at the village by water: food, petrol, clothing... and dead bodies.

"There were days in which I'd fish out two or three corpses," says local resident Angel Segundo Hernandez.

The 79-year-old, who is better known by his nickname, Chain, has been pulling bodies out of the Sanquianga river for more than a decade.

He says the worst period was between 2001 and 2004, when right-wing paramilitary groups first moved into the region to fight Marxist Farc guerrillas.

"During those four years... oh, boy, that was really sad. I swear I fished out more than 50 dead bodies," recalls Chain.

"And they still come down [the river]. They still come down."

Narino is the province in Colombia with the highest density of coca plants - the raw material for cocaine - and its Pacific coast is the main exit point for speedboats smuggling the drug to Central America, and on to the United States.

Its strategic importance to drug trafficking, a key source of income for both right-wing paramilitary gangs and the rebels, has made it one of Colombia's most dangerous places.

And it is not just the Farc and paramilitary gangs that operate in this region.

Colombia's second largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN) also has a presence in certain parts of Narino.

Gillian McCarthy of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says with so many armed groups, "there's always something happening" in the area.

"The most obvious one is the unidentified dead bodies in the cemetery," she says.

This is even more evident in the port city of Tumaco, a three-hour boat trip from Bocas de Satinga.

Here, word is that even the old ladies that rent mobile phones and sell sweets on the streets have to pay extortion money to either the Farc, the ELN or the paramilitary gangs.

And with a homicide rate of 136 per every 100,000 inhabitants - almost four times the Colombian average - the forensic team at the local morgue is never short of work.

Dr Antonio Sarama has had to examine hundreds of bodies in the morgue in Tumaco, mostly victims of drug-related violence "There was a year in which we had to practice 420 post-mortem examinations," says Dr Antonio Sarama, who has been working in the city for the last eight years.

"And the homicides are just the tip of the iceberg," he says. "You also have problems like extortion, kidnapping, rape."

Dr Sarama says he spent the last two days examining the bodies of land mine victims.

Mines abound in Tumaco's rural area, where they are planted by the owners of coca fields to prevent the security forces from eradicating them.

But he says most of the dead are victims of drug-related violence, murdered by hitmen in the service of the many armed groups fighting for control of this patch of land.

"You can tell because of the overkill," says Dr Sarama. "We're talking about bodies riddled with more than 20 gunshots."

The flow of dead is such that Tumaco's small cemetery can no longer cope. Gravediggers have started to remove the remains of unidentified bodies to make more room.

The remains are unceremoniously disposed of in white bags, further lessening the chance of relatives to ever find or identify their loved ones.



Thanks to the care taken by Mr Segundo Hernandez in Bocas de Satinga, the ICRC has been able to locate the remains of most of the unidentified bodies washed up during the past decade.

They have marked their location with white tombstones with the letters NN, for "ningun nombre", or no name.

A team from the Colombian Institute of Legal Medicine will soon be moving into a newly built morgue in Bocas de Satinga, to try to identify the 58 bodies recovered by Chain.

The move is part of a two-year project aimed at identifying Colombia's unnamed dead, of which there are estimated to be 40,000 scattered in cemeteries across the country.

It is a monumental task, taking in 65 graveyards in 13 different Colombian provinces. But the authorities argue the effort is warranted, as an identification of the victims of Colombia's armed conflict is part of paving the way for an eventual peace deal.

The rights of and compensation for the victims is one of the issues on the agenda at peace negotiations currently under way in Cuba between the government and Farc rebels.

Chain, who says he took it upon himself to recover and bury the nameless bodies washed up in his village because he could not bare the idea of them drifting all the way to the sea, welcomes the project.

While it is too late for those who died, he says their families may be given some solace by their identification, and any possible reparation payments.

"The government has said it will compensate the families, and that money will surely come handy," he says.

"Unfortunately, it will not be possible for all of them. But those who are identified…well, it will be great for their families," says the man who in his village has become known as the "fisherman of the dead".

Tuesday 11 June 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22795977

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