Wednesday 12 June 2013

Process to review cases of unidentified remains in BiH facilities is welcomed by BiH Prosecutor and ICMP


A process initiated by the BiH Prosecutor’s Office to undertake a review of all mortuary facilities throughout BiH, started its activities at Gradsko Groblje ‘Sutina’ mortuary in Mostar. The review whose main actors will be the BiH Missing Persons Institute, Brčko DC and BiH Prosecutors’ Offices, will take stock of these facilities, i.e. it will inventory all unidentified remains in the 12 facilities within BiH.

There are currently some 9,300 cases in mortal remains storage facilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina that are unidentified. These cases are currently known to represent the mortal remains of approximately 2,500 individuals, for which ICMP has a unique genetic profile obtained from a bone sample received from local authorities. These have not been matched to over 9,000 full sets of blood samples voluntarily provided to ICMP by over 18,000 family members of the missing.

The inventory will determine the status of each case, and assess what work needs to be done so they may be resolved. ICMP is providing a dedicated team of anthropologists to give technical assistance to the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, MPI, cantonal and regional prosecution offices as well as the Brčko DC Prosecutor’s Office in their efforts to find a solution for each of these cases.’

“BIH Prosecutor’s Office supports all activities aimed at locating and identifying mortal remains of missing persons, since this is an important issue for the families of war crime victims. They have search for the mortal remains of their relatives for years in order to give them a dignified burial. This process is also important for war crime processing, as evidence in these court cases is often based on the located and identified victim mortal remains. The State of BiH and the International Community must support us in this process, because the issue of war crime processing is a key to establishing a rule of law in BiH”, said Goran Salihović, BiH Chief Prosecutor.

“ICMP has for years advised that the unidentified remains in BiH mortuaries need a thorough review. Thanks to the initiative of the BiH Prosecutor’s Office we hope that progress will finally be made in resolving the status of these cases and that as consequence we can make new identifications. This process will require close cooperation between ICMP, the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, MPI, court-appointed pathologists as well as entity and lower level prosecutor’s offices to be successful”, said ICMP Director General Kathryne Bomberger.

Of the 30,000 people estimated missing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, over 70 % have now been accounted for, of which the majority were accurately identified in cooperation with ICMP. ICMP was created in 1996 with the primary role of ensuring the cooperation of governments in locating and identifying missing persons.

Wednesday 12 June 2013

http://www.ic-mp.org/press-releases/review-of-nn-remains-starts/

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Suffering in silence: women in the shadow of Srebrenica


"My younger son was so bright and did so well in maths," Safia recalls wistfully near the spot where she last saw her 16-year-old son. He, her husband and her eldest son were running across the street and into woodland to safety. She and her pregnant daughter-in-law fled in the opposite direction.

Nearly 18 years later, authorities have yet to find their remains in the killing fields of Srebrenica. Safia attends the annual Potočari Genocide Memorial, where the bones of those recovered and identified over the past year are laid to rest. She lives ever hopeful that one day she too will be able to do the same for her family; just three of the 8,000 victims of the Bosnian genocide.

While trying to flee the violence, her expectant daughter-in-law was taken away from her by Bosnian Serb soldiers and led into a nearby forest, along with other young girls from their truck. "Whilst I was waiting for her to return, I saw two small children crying for their mother. Soldiers had taken her up into the woods to rape her. That is where they took all the women to rape."

Over 50,000 known cases of sexual abuse were recorded during the Bosnian War from 1992 to 1995. It is a spiralling global trend that has seen 500,000 instances of rape in Rwanda and hundreds of thousands more still being currently investigated in the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo.

For women in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the legacy of the war continues to cast a long shadow. They live in a country looking to exercise the spectre of genocide whilst striving towards EU integration and NATO membership. They not only continue to be defined by the patriarchal society they live in and the acts committed against them by soldiers but also by those men who survived. The extent of Bosnia's domestic abuse crisis cannot be quantified. No official statistics are currently recorded.

The Green Line Safe House in Sarajevo is a women's refuge; a project set up by the United Nations Population Fund to help survivors of gender-based violence. One of the centre's helpline operators, Nerimana Sochivica, was herself abused by her husband. Having survived the war, he returned a changed man, both emotionally and physical scarred from torture and abuse in captivity. "One night he came home drunk and grabbed a knife, shouting 'My life has no meaning and neither should yours!' That's when I decided we had to leave," she said.

It is a story known all too well in neighbouring Kosovo, itself embroiled in a war in the late 1990s where ethnic cleansing and sexual violence towards women were rife.

The Kosova Women's Network (KWN) is just one movement battling for justice for rape victims during the Kosovo conflict. Such virulent campaigns however are reopening old wounds and consolidating a sense of national shame that has in fact seen a rise in violence against women. One of the KWN's activists, Nazlie Bala, was physically assaulted outside her apartment in March 2013; the result of a television appearance in which she provided evidence of rapes committed during the war.

Nearly twenty years since the cessation of hostilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, women continue to fight for justice, but arguably have yet to strike a chord in a male-orientated Balkan society. Perhaps the most chilling evidence of this was the mocking cut-throat gesture made by Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic to the women victims present in the galleries on the first day of his trial for war crimes in May 2012.

For the majority of women, including Safia, the loss of a husband has signalled the beginning of a more enduring fight: the fight against poverty. Those who suffered sexual abuse during the war, or from the resulting domestic violence in the twenty years since, have increasingly become those most vulnerable to economic distress.

Many initially returned to homes damaged or destroyed in the war and were thrust into the role of breadwinner without essential skills or an education. The veiled threat of destitution is an ever present danger for those suffering domestic abuse in contemporary Bosnia.

For many women, programs run by NGOs like Women for Women International (WWI) have become a critical lifeline. Set up in 1993 during the war following a visit by founder Zainab Salbi, it offers financial aid, skills training, emotional support and rights awareness classes.

For 52-year-old Ahida Dudich, the courageous choice to leave her abusive husband after 30 years of marriage only came about as a result of joining WWI. Taking just a sewing machine and a few clothes with her, she has since become an entrepreneur, making and selling shopping bags.

Returning to the house in Srebrenica where she resided before and during the war was a harrowing experience for Safia, not least because of the painful memories of her family and the encounters in the street with those culpable of the town's massacre.

"I applied for a grant to reconstruct my house because all the water pipes were broken and the house, which had been built by my husband and in which I lived with my husband and my children, was the only thing I had left. For three years, I was refused a grant."

With aid from the WWI program, Safia has also gained her own financial independence and started rebuilding her life in the shadow of the killing fields. "Thanks to the microcredit programme I was able to rebuild my house. Thanks to skills training, I was able to learn about chicken rearing."

She also credits the solidarity of those she has met through WWI who likewise experienced the horrors of rape and murder and continue to live with the war's permanent scars; the women she now calls her friends.

"We still meet every week even though the program is over. Their support is so important to me. We understand each other."

Wednesday 12 June 2013

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development-professionals-network/2013/jun/07/srebrenica-women

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Death toll from monsoon storm in Sri Lanka rises to 52


Sri Lanka's Disaster Management Centre (DMC) says the death toll from the adverse weather that swept the south western part of the country now stands at 52. Another 16 people are still reported missing and 28 people have received injuries.

The DMC has revised the death toll this morning to 52 from an earlier figure of 56.

Bodies of 11 fishermen washed ashore yesterday, the state-run radio reported. The authorities expect the death toll to rise as the missing people are presumed dead.

The DMC said the number of missing people will be changed after identification of dead bodies.

The gale force winds have damaged 3,385 houses partially and 153 houses totally while 259 people have been evacuated to shelters. The Divisional Secretariats have provided cooked meals to the displaced people.

Meanwhile, power supply was disrupted by the heavy winds in several areas in Kaduwela and Pahala Bomiriya. Several transformers and power lines have been damaged by the wind. The Electricity Board is now taking measures to restore the power supply.

Nuwara Eliya District Secretary D.P.G. Kumarasiri says power supply has been disrupted in Hatton, Dikoya and Watawala areas due to trees fallen on power lines.

Heavy rains have filled the Lakshapana and Canyon hydropower reservoirs and authorities have opened the sluice gates.

Wednesday 12 June 2013

http://www.colombopage.com/archive_13A/Jun12_1371020936CH.php

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Arrangements for asylum seekers who die at sea


What do authorities do when an asylum seeker dies while attempting to reach Australia? It’s a morbid and rather gruesome topic that Australian — and Indonesian — authorities regularly have to deal with, and not just when the public is outraged about the bodies of asylum seekers remaining in the water.

Around 1800 people are thought to have drowned while attempting to reach Australian since 2000, including a suspected 55 people who drowned following a boat sinking off Christmas Island last week. Another boat has gone missing overnight, and the number of asylum seekers aboard is unknown. In April, a boat sunk off the Javanese coast with over 70 on board, and just 14 people survived. In August 2012, another 100 asylum seekers drowned off a similar patch of Indonesia coast. Fifty people died in December 2010 after a boat crash off Christmas Island.

Authorities have been criticised for not retrieving the 13 dead bodies that were spotted in the water following the most recent Christmas Island disaster. But there is no obligation under international law for Australian authorities to perform search and rescue for deceased persons. Border Protection Control officials are currently aiding the fourth asylum seeker boat in just a few days, and resources are stretched. Indonesian authorities have also been slammed in the past for their delay in starting search and rescue operations for survivors after boats have sunk.

Experts say human remains usually decompose within 28 days at sea (at least in Australia’s warm water). Authorities are more likely to retrieve bodies if a boat sinks near a coast, in order to lessen the chances of a deceased person floating on to land.

But what happens once a body has been retrieved? Funeral arrangements are decided on a case-by-case basis, after consultation with family — if the body is able to be identified, says the Department of Immigration.

Identification isn’t always easy. The Australian Federal Police are responsible for identifying a body in accordance with a request from the coroner. The process can include compiling evidence from survivors, family members and friends (both overseas and in Australia) and others in Indonesia who were aware of who boarded the boat. DNA evidence is often used.

After the horrendous 2010 Christmas Island boat crash, where a boat laden with asylum seekers smashed into the island’s cliffs, dental records were obtained from the asylum seekers’ families and countries of origin, and these were compared with the dead to provide identification. In that instance, 30 bodies were recovered from the water. Another 20 bodies were never found, although the State Coroner recorded their deaths in the inquest into the crash. Clarifying the identities of the bodies that weren’t recovered proved extremely difficult, with the inquest report noting:

“In many cases there was evidence that the persons suspected of being deceased had left Iran or Iraq, but evidence as to their being on the boat in question was lacking. This situation was further complicated by the fact that many of the witness statements obtained had been obtained for other purposes and only dealt with the identity of the missing persons in an indirect and inconclusive way. A further problem related to the fact that many of those on the vessel were known by a number of different names and those names did not translate easily from the language of origin into English and spellings were inconsistent.

“WA Police officers were required to obtain a number of additional statements from family members, some of whom were able to identify those missing using photographs of passengers on the vessel taken by those on shore shortly before it sank.”

But not all boats sink next to a shore with cameras.

The responsibility of burial lies with the next of kin. If next of kin cannot be identified then the state, i.e. Western Australia for deaths off Christmas Island, will organise a burial. If the next of kin is also on Christmas Island or somewhere else within the Department of Immigration’s care, then the Department of Immigration will work with them to arrange a funeral.

Muslim burial customs indicate that a body should be buried as soon as possible, and Australian authorities will negotiate with religious organisations regarding burial customs. The Australian government also expatriates bodies back to their country of origin if the family requests it. After the 2010 Christmas Island boat crash, seven bodies were returned to Iraq, two to Iraq and 12 were buried in Sydney, where they had family.

The whole process is made more complicated by the number of authorities involved, including the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, Australian Customs and Border Protection, Australian Federal Police and the Department of Immigration.

Wednesday 12 June 2013

http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/06/12/what-happens-when-an-asylum-seeker-dies/?wpmp_switcher=mobile

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Aircraft recovery 'difficult, if not impossible'


A coronial inquest into the fatal crash of a Twin Otter Aircraft in Antarctica has found it will be "difficult, if not impossible to recover the aircraft for more information".

Three Canadian men, Captain Bob Heath, First Officer Mike Denton and engineer Perry Anderson were identified as being on board the aircraft when it crashed or made a forced landing on January 23.

The plane was on a repositioning flight from South Pole Station to Terra Nova Bay when it did not respond to normal communications.

New Zealand search and rescue personnel said the plane crash would not have been survivable and subsequent attempts to find the bodies were hampered by fierce weather and high altitude.

The incident occurred in the Ross Dependency region of Antarctica, which comes under New Zealand's jurisdiction. Canadian and New Zealand authorities have been cooperating during the investigation.

The coroner's evidence was presented in Auckland District Court this morning, which was live streamed to the victims' families in Canada.

After hearing evidence from Senior Sergeant Bruce Johnston, Chief Coroner Judge MacLean agreed it would be "extraordinarily difficult to recover the bodies" due to the "harsh" environment.

Any small chance of a future recovery would depend on "the next summer season and availability of resources".

He compared the situation to that of the Pike River Mine and Easy Rider tragedies.

"All three men died on the upper slopes of Mt Elizabeth [...] Without post-mortem it can be presumed the deaths were caused by multiple injuries in a high impact crash," he said.

The rescue and recovery attempts in such dangerous conditions were praised by Judge MacLean, who said it showed "extreme courage".

He also mentioned the excellent communication during the investigation between a wide range of agencies, including the Canadian High Commission, NZ Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the aircraft operator Kenn Borek Air Ltd.

Additional investigations are still underway by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada who aim to further determine the causes and contributing factors of the incident.

Wednesday 12 June 2013

http://www.3news.co.nz/Aircraft-recovery-difficult-if-not-impossible/tabid/423/articleID/301179/Default.aspx

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