Saturday 31 May 2014

WW II aircraft and remains recovered from Vancouver Island mountainside


A Second World War training aircraft and the remains of four airmen who went missing in 1942 have been recovered from a remote logging site on Vancouver Island.

The Avro Anson aircraft went missing on Oct. 30, 1942, after it left the air force base at Patricia Bay in Sidney on a navigational training flight.

After the aircraft failed to return to the base as planned, searches failed to locate any wreckage.

Last October, a logging crew working for Teal-Jones Cedar Products on a remote mountainside on the west coast of Vancouver Island near Port Renfrew came upon the wreckage.

vancouver island plane recovery

The B.C. Coroners Service and the Department of National Defence were able to recover the bodies from the remote mountainside earlier this month.

The Department of National Defence surveyed the site and discovered the remains of the four airmen, but conditions at the time made it too difficult to recover them.

This month, specialists from the B.C. Coroners Service returned to the site with DND personnel and were able to recover and eventually identify the remains.

The surviving family members were then contacted to let them know of the discovery.

Aircrew included 1 Canadian, 3 Brits

The four airmen included Sgt. William Baird from the Royal Canadian Air Force, and three members of the British Royal Air Force: Pilot Officer Charles Fox, Pilot Officer Anthony William Lawrence, and Sgt. Robert Ernest Luckock.

All four were members of the Royal Canadian Air Force 32 Operational Training Unit, and after they were presumed dead, their names were listed on the Ottawa memorial for the missing.

The Avro Anson was a twin-engine aircraft used for training bomber crews throughout the Commonwealth during the war. They remained in use by the Canadian military until 1952. (L-Bit/Wikimedia Commons)

In statement issued on Friday, the Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said officials were working with their counterparts in the U.K. to provide a final resting place for the men's remains in a Commonwealth war graves plot.

"Our government makes every effort to honour those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, irrespective of the length of time that has passed. This recovery, and subsequent burial, will provide closure to the families and give these fallen service members the dignity and respect they deserve," said Nicholson.

DND says more than 100 aircrew lost their lives while flying out of Patricia Bay during the Second World War.

“We will never forget the sacrifice of those who came before us and the importance of recovering our fellow airmen cannot be understated. No matter how much time passes, doing the right thing for our people and for their families is an air force priority," said Lt.-Gen. Yvan Blodin, the commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, in the statement.

The Avro Anson was a twin-engine aircraft used for training bomber crews throughout the Commonwealth during the war. They remained in use by the Canada military until 1952.

Saturday 31 May 2014

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ww-ii-aircraft-and-remains-recovered-from-vancouver-island-mountainside-1.2659691

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Friday 30 May 2014

14 die in Edo auto crash


No fewer than 14 persons lost their lives yesterday in an auto crash on the Benin-Okene Expressway.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the incident, which occurred around the Ewu slope in Esan Central Local Government Area of Edo State, involved a 15-seater Toyota Hiace bus belonging to Edo City Transports Service and an articulated vehicle.

The truck, which was said to be coming from Abuja ran over the bus, resulting in the death of all passengers on board.

A witness, Mr. Ben Omoede, said the incident occurred when the brakes of the articulated vehicle failed.

“The truck’s brakes failed and it ran over the Toyota bus coming from the opposite side and killed the 13 passengers and the driver,’’ he said.

Officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and the Nigeria Red Cross Society evacuated the corpses to Irrua Specialist Hospital in Edo State.

Chairman of Edo Central branch of the Red Cross, Mike Odiahi, who was at the scene, confirmed the incident to newsmen.

He said: “14 dead bodies have been recovered and they have been taken to the mortuary at Irrua Specialist Hospital.’’

Odiahi, who lamented the frequent accidents around the Ewu slope, advised road safety officials to ensure regular patrols in the area to prevent further accidents.

Friday 30 May 2014

http://sunnewsonline.com/new/?p=65638

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2nd diver dies in search of South Korean ferry


A diver has died during the search for people still missing inside a sunken South Korean ferry.

It’s the second such death among divers mobilized since the ferry sank on April 16, leaving more than 300 people dead or missing.

Government task force spokesman Ko Myung-seok says the diver fell unconscious when he was pulled to the surface by fellow divers Friday.

The diver received CPR and was taken to a hospital on a helicopter but was declared dead there. The exact cause wasn’t known.

Ko says the diver was cutting open parts of the ship exterior to make searches easier.

Since the sinking, 288 bodies have been recovered but 16 people are still missing. No new body has been retrieved since May 21.

Friday 30 May 2014

http://time.com/2796620/2nd-diver-dies-in-search-of-south-korean-ferry/

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Thursday 29 May 2014

‘Forgotten Empress’ sank 100 years ago, took 1,012 lives


It took only 14 minutes for the storied steamship to sink near Rimouski, Canada’s deadliest maritime disaster during peacetime, yet many have never heard the chilling tale.

It was May 29, 1914, and Mary Dale was bringing her baby daughter Reta back to Buxton, England, to show her off to relatives. The two would have been fast asleep in their second-class cabin on the RMS Empress of Ireland as it sailed past Rimouski in the calm waters of the St-Lawrence. They may have been startled from their slumber when the ship’s alarm bells and foghorn blasted into the dead of night. But there was no time to escape.

The Empress, en route from Quebec City to Liverpool, was broadsided by the 6,000-tonne Norwegian freighter SS Storstad, which was loaded with 11,000 tonnes of coal. And water was flooding through the huge gash in the Empress’s hull. The Empress went down in 14 minutes.

Mary and Reta were among the 1,012 passengers and crew who perished at about 2 that morning in the river. Only 465 survived. “My great uncle Jack, who was working as a carpenter in Toronto, went to search among the bodies. They said he went grey overnight,” said Anne Polewski, Mary’s great-niece.

This week, Polewski and her husband will travel from Ancaster, Ont., to Rimouski to mark the centenary of Canada’s deadliest maritime disaster during peacetime. Though the Empress of Ireland went down long before Polewski was born, she has thought a lot about the accident, imagining herself in her great aunt’s place. “They would have been wearing long nightgowns, which would have made it difficult to escape,” Polewski said.

Few Canadian schoolchildren learn the story of the Empress and those who were aboard when it sank. The sinking of the glamorous Titanic two years earlier made bigger headlines. And when the First World War broke out in July 1914, the Empress was all but forgotten.

“The ship is often called ‘The Forgotten Empress’ — but not in the Lower St-Lawrence region,” said David St-Pierre, a maritime historian who grew up in Rimouski and now lives in Quebec City.

As a child, St-Pierre recalls seeing an early exhibit in Rimouski about the Empress, but he says interest in the ship’s story was sparked in 1985, when oceanographer Robert Ballard discovered the wreck of the RMS Titanic. “People started to remember that a ship had sunk in the St-Lawrence. That was the first time the Empress became popular,” St-Pierre said.

When St-Pierre describes the accident, it’s as if he was there. “It was a sad accident. Both ships confused the signals — foghorns and bells — sent in the fog. Neither knew where the other ship was as they were navigating through the St-Lawrence. By trying to avoid each other, the Storstad rammed the Empress,” said St-Pierre. The collision crippled the Empress’s main dividing watertight bulkhead between its two boiler rooms. Because the ship’s watertight doors were open, water moved quickly from one compartment to the other. It is estimated that the ship filled with 60,000 gallons of water per second.

“The majority of those who died probably drowned in their sleep,” said St-Pierre.

Among the passengers on the Empress was a large contingent of members of the Salvation Army, bound for England for an international congress. Ernest William Aldridge’s body was the last to be found — three months after the Empress sank. According to St-Pierre, the remains of some 800 of those who perished were never found. A carpenter by trade, Aldridge played the trombone and was a member of the Salvation Army’s Grand Staff Band. He was 30, and he left behind a wife and three children.

Aldridge’s grandson David Whealy, 75, a retired high school teacher and counsellor who lives in Toronto, says the grandfather he never knew had an important influence in his life. “There was always the vacuum of not having him there, yet I constantly heard about him. His life was lived with a strong purpose — building houses and working for the church. That same desire to have a purpose has stuck with me. That’s why I ended up in teaching,” Whealy said.

Like Whealy, June Ivany had family aboard the Empress, also headed to the Salvation Army congress. Ivany’s grandparents, an uncle and an aunt were among the 465 survivors of the accident, but another uncle, Leonard Delamont, who was in his 20s, perished. “When I was growing up, nobody talked about the details. I’ve learned by doing research,” said Ivany, who is 60.

The 167-metre-long Empress, which left Quebec City for Liverpool on May 28, 1914, had dropped off a river pilot and turned northeast toward the Gulf of St. Lawrence.The ship that collided with it, The Storstad, bound for Montreal, was cruising full speed toward shore to pick up a pilot.

After the collier smashed into its hull, the Empress listed and sank in only 14 minutes amid the screams of terrified crew and passengers. Only a few lifeboats could be launched and most of the people travelling below deck in third class were thought to have drowned in their bunks.

A front-page story in the Toronto Sunday World on June 2, 1914, described the “butchery” of the mad scramble to escape the lower decks. The headline read: Steerage Passengers Slain by Comrades in Scramble for Life; Wounds of Victims Tell Tale of Frenzied Struggle for Life in Empress’ Steerage Quarters; Knives and Dirks Were Apparently Plied by Crazed Passengers Battling Way Thru Crowded Mass in Fore-hold.

Loved ones from across Canada headed to Quebec to conduct the grim duty of trying to identify the dead.

Though Ivany’s grandparents died before she was born, she knew her Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Arthur. “At the time no one talked about post-traumatic stress disorder, but my Aunt Lizzie was afraid of water. She didn’t like to take baths.”

Ivany’s Uncle Leonard died heroically. “When he realized his mom didn’t have a life-jacket, he gave her his. Then he jumped overboard so she couldn’t object,” said Ivany. Delamont’s body was never found.

Ivany and her husband will make 10-hour drive from their home in Toronto to Rimouski to mark the centenary. “Realizing you’re directly connected is kind of an awesome feeling,” she said. Ivany wishes Canadians knew more about the Empress. “Everybody knows about the Titanic. This is an important part of our Canadian history.”

It is not only historians like St-Pierre and descendants of those who were aboard the Empress who want to keep the ship’s story alive. Philippe Beaudry has devoted more than 40 years of his life to the Empress. A retired business consultant, Beaudry, who divides his time between his home in Longueuil and a boat he sails around the world, owned the largest private collection of artifacts from the site of the shipwreck. In 2012, after several years of negotiations, Beaudry sold most of his collection, valued at more than $3 million, to the Canadian Museum of Civilization, now the Canadian Museum of History, in Ottawa.

A longtime scuba diver, Beaudry, now 69, estimates he dove to the site of the wreck of the Empress more than 600 times. He first made the dive in 1970 after hearing about the site from another diver. “When I got to the bottom, there was no light. By pure chance, I found the wheelhouse. That weekend, I started to salvage some pieces such as the magnifier from the main compass,” he said.

The dive, which has claimed the lives of six divers, is considered dangerous because of unpredictable currents, low visibility and frigid water. But none of that deterred Beaudry. “It was an obsession. I was addicted to that work.”

In the 1970s, Beaudry met U.S. divers who were taking major artifacts from the Empress back to the United States. “I thought, ‘These things have to be protected. They have to remain in Canada and the story of the Empress has to be known around the world,” he said.

Compared to the famous story of the Titanic luxury liner that sank two years earlier, the Empress of Ireland’s tale has remained in the shadows. But experts on the ship’s history believe the Empress is finally getting its due as the 100th anniversary of the tragedy approaches.The vessel will be commemorated with the release of Canada Post stamps, a pair of silver coins from the Royal Canadian Mint, the launch of a Museum of Canadian History exhibit, the unveiling of a monument and several memorials around the country.

In Rimouski, the Pointe-au-Père maritime museum, which has a pavilion dedicated to the Empress, will host a banquet and unveil a monument. Churches in Rimouski and nearby Ste-Luce plan to pay homage by ringing their bells in unison at 1:55 a.m., the time of the disaster.

The Salvation Army, which dispatched 170 of its members on the ship to a rally in England, will hold its annual Empress ceremony Sunday at Toronto’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery as well as a reception May 31 in Rimouski. The organization lost 141 people.

The Maritime Museum of B.C. in Victoria has an exhibit of items from the shipwreck.

It was not until 1999 that the spot was declared a historical site. “Sports divers can go and look. But since 1999, if they take objects, they must be authorized. We want the objects to stay there,” said Euchariste Morin, cultural development officer with Quebec’s Ministry of Culture and Communications.

Until 2012, Beaudry stored his collection — which included everything from the ship’s bell to dinner plates and bottles of champagne — in his Longueuil home. “My basement was full and I had to build an addition to store the rest of the stuff. My wife, Gisèle, never knew how much money I spent on this project — about half a million dollars.”

Beaudry’s interest extended beyond artifacts; he wanted to learn the stories of those who were aboard the Empress on its final journey, as well as the history of the ship, which made its maiden voyage in 1906. The Empress made 95 transatlantic crossings before it went down, bringing over some 120,000 European immigrants to Canada, many of whom settled in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. “It was an immigrant ship. The Empress is part of the story of Confederation,” Beaudry said.

In 1980, Beaudry travelled to England to meet Ronald Ferguson, the senior Marconi officer (as wireless telegraph officers were known at the time) who acted heroically during the collision. “Ferguson was one of the people who saw the Storstad hit the Empress. He knew something was very wrong, but because he was employed by Marconi and was not one of the ship’s officers, he was not authorized to make any decision on his own. He didn’t have the authority to send an SOS, so he sent a pre-SOS to nearby Pointe-au-Père telling them to stand by for an emergency. When the ship’s chief officer gave Ferguson the okay to send an SOS, the ship was listing so badly that Ferguson sent the SOS with one foot on the deck of the Empress and his other foot on the bulkhead or wall of the ship,” said St-Pierre.

Ferguson was 87 when Beaudry met him. “He was like the father I didn’t have,” said Beaudry. “He died three or four years later. He felt the story should have been better known. He never got recognition for what he did.”

Since its 1914 sinking, the Empress of Ireland has continued to claim lives.Over the years, about a half-dozen sport divers have died near the wreck site, which is nearly 50 metres below the surface.

Derek Grout, who wrote two books on the Empress of Ireland, said the area around the wreckage is known for its poor visibility, strong current and dangerous entanglements, such as electrical wires.

“It’s not the place for the faint of heart,” said Grout, who authored “Empress of Ireland: The Story of an Edwardian Liner” and “RMS Empress of Ireland: Pride of the Canadian Pacific’s Atlantic Fleet.”

Even with the hazards, Grout said the Empress was accessible to divers and became one of the most-pillaged shipwrecks in the world. The ship also took many secrets to the riverbed and some believe it may have been cursed.

The Empress’s orange cat, Emmy, jumped off the vessel before it left Quebec City the day before the disaster. Someone caught her and brought her back to the ship, but she ran away a second time, leaving a litter of kittens behind, Grout said.

“Sailors regard that as a terrible omen,” he said of losing a ship’s cat.

A newspaper report also suggested the ship’s captain may have been cursed by a fugitive he helped authorities capture a few years earlier at Father Point, near the site of the Empress disaster.

Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, who was later executed after being found guilty of killing his wife, is said to have cursed Capt. Henry George Kendall upon his capture by a Scotland Yard inspector. At the time, the men were aboard the Montrose liner, which Kendall had captained before the Empress.

Ottawa-based young adult fiction author Caroline Cranny Pignat is also doing her bit to keep the Empress’s story alive. In 2012, Pignat, who won the Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature in 2009, was approached by Penguin to write a historical novel set on the Empress. “I had never heard of the ship, which is really embarrassing as a Canadian,” said Cranny Pignat.

Cranny Pignat got hooked when she started reading newspaper articles from the time and survivor accounts. “Some of the details such as the people who were crushed by life boats and the naked, bloated bodies, were too upsetting to include in a novel for young adults,” Cranny Pignat said.

Cranny Pignat’s novel, Unspeakable, was released this month — in time for the centenary. Cranny Pignat says she has enjoyed learning the story of the Empress, and imagining what it would have been like to be aboard the ship. “It amazed me that this was something bigger than the Titanic and yet so few of us knew about it. Americans know their history. We don’t know ours. The ship was lost — and its story was lost, too,” she said. The Titanic sank on its maiden voyage and it took some two-and-a-half hours before the ship went down. Though there were more deaths when the Titianic sank — 1,517 — more passengers died on the Empress.

But St-Pierre says the centenary events are an important way for Canadians to learn and share the Empress’s story. On May 29, St-Pierre will be at the Maritime Museum of Quebec in L’Islet to participate in a panel discussion about the Empress and Canadian underwater heritage. The Canadian Museum of History launched its exhibit, which features the artifacts Beaudry collected, this week. There is another exhibit about the Empress at the Maritime Museum of British Columbia in Victoria.

“One thousand and twelve people died on the Empress. We should remember them, but we should also remember the Empress as being part of the broader picture of Canadian immigration and settlement,” St-Pierre said. “Her story is part of our collective history that we can remember and celebrate.”

Thursday 29 May 2014

http://www.canada.com/news/Forgotten+Empress+sank+years+took+lives/9885184/story.html

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Families of Colombia disappeared see little hope of justice


After 22 years, Mayerlis Angarita has finally given up hope and stopped searching for her mother, who disappeared one afternoon when Mayerlis was just 11.

“There comes a moment when you stop looking and searching for the truth. I know it will be difficult, if not impossible, to ever know the truth about what happened to my mother,” said Angarita, 33, who heads a women’s rights and land campaigning group, Network for Life.

“You learn with time that if a person doesn’t return home it’s because something has happened to them, that they’re dead,” she said.

Angarita blames her mother’s disappearance on right-wing paramilitary groups which were formed in the 1980s and backed by landowners and politicians to protect them from attacks by leftist rebels.

Around 35,000 paramilitary fighters demobilised as part of a peace deal with the last government, but thousands have since returned to crime and formed new gangs.

Angarita says her mother was last seen being grabbed while washing clothes in a river and bundled into a van by several paramilitary fighters near the town of Monteria in western Cordoba province, a paramilitary stronghold in the 1990s.

“When someone disappears it’s a permanent crime ... The worst thing is that at the time we couldn’t even say my mother had gone missing because it would have been seen as a rebellious act by the paramilitaries. I remember going to school and people asking where my mother was. I had to say she died of natural causes,” Angarita told Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Angarita is one of more than 30,000 people in Colombia whose relatives have disappeared without trace since 1977, victims of five decades of civil war between government troops, paramilitary groups and leftist guerrillas, according to government estimates cited in a new report on Colombia's missing people.

The four-volume report by the National Centre for Historical Memory says that all the warring factions were involved in forced disappearances from 1970 to 2012, but that state security forces, allied with paramilitaries and drug traffickers, played a “notable” role in forced disappearances from the 1980s onwards.

“An attitude persists that denies forced disappearances have been, and are, a reality in Colombia,” the report by the independent research group said.

Over the decades, tens of thousands of innocent people, including trade unionists, poor farmers and other civilians accused of being informers or of sympathising with rebel groups, were killed and dumped in mass graves around the country.

The report cites numerous cases where state security forces tortured civilians and hid their bodies to destroy the evidence, making it almost impossible to trace their crimes.

In 1998, for example, the report says government soldiers and paramilitary fighters were responsible for the torture and disappearance of 26 members of the Embera indigenous tribe and farmers, including nine women, who were suspected of collaborating with rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group.

One of the worst atrocities involving state security forces was the “false positives affair”, the report said. In 2008, security forces were accused of murdering civilians and passing them off as rebels killed in battle to inflate the body count in the government’s war against the FARC. The killings involved scores of innocent men, some as young as 16.

Dozens of army officials have been imprisoned for these crimes and investigations and trials of soldiers suspected of involvement in the scandal continue.

The report said families looking for missing relatives faced “massive obstacles from the state apparatus,” and that the authorities’ response to the families had been “defective, erratic and inadequate.”

Forced disappearance was only recognised as a specific crime in Colombia in 2000, even though the first case was officially registered in 1977, the report said.

Few families have found the truth about what happened to their loved ones.

Of the 28,000 cases of missing people being investigated by the attorney general’s office, only 35 have led to convictions, the report noted.

The attorney general’s office only set up a special unit to investigate forced disappearances four years ago, it said.

A government peace accord with the Marxist FARC rebels might help throw light on some of the forced disappearances. Peace talks between the two sides have been under way in Havana, Cuba, since November 2012, though fighting continues.

A peace accord might persuade FARC rebels to say where bodies are buried and might also encourage people who have never reported disappearances to come forward, rights groups say.

While the peace talks continue, forensic teams and around 20 state prosecutors from the attorney-general's office are searching for the disappeared and exhuming bodies.

State prosecutors say it could take 10 years to find and open the estimated 30,000 unmarked graves.

So far, around 4,000 missing people’s graves have been discovered and 5,000 bodies found, thanks to the confessions of scores of paramilitary warlords who laid down their weapons and received maximum 8-year prison sentences in exchange for confessing their crimes.

But Angarita has little hope of ever recovering her mother’s body.

“I’m still waiting but I've almost no hope left. It’s been known for the paramilitaries to cut up bodies and dump in them in rivers,” she said.

Thursday 29 May 2014

http://www.trust.org/item/20140528174236-km7tz/?source=hpeditorial&siteVersion=mobile

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Wednesday 28 May 2014

Remains of 17 people exhumed in Rudnica


The remains of 17 people and a number of skeletal remains have been exhumed to date from a mass grave at the Rudnica quarry in the municipality of Raška.

This was announced on Tuesday by the Serbian Government Commission for Missing Persons.

It is believed that ethnic Albanian victims of the war in Kosovo were buried at the location, the Beta news agency reported.

According to the assessments of experts, the remains of 21 people have been exhumed, and their identity will be determined by the DNA analysis, reported Tanjug.

The exhumation at the Rudnica quarry started on April 23 upon the order of the War Crimes Department of the Belgrade High Court.

A number of exhumed remains are undergoing forensic processes and identification.

The field search and excavation now seek to broaden their scope so as to find other remains that are believed to be buried at this location, the statement reads.

Aside from the authorized state bodies and a team of expert witnesses from Serbia, which are in charge of the forensic aspect of the exhumation, officials of EULEX, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Commission on Missing Persons and delegations of the Working Group on Missing Persons from Priština are also present at the site in the capacity of observers.

Wednesday 28 May 2014

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/crimes.php?yyyy=2014&mm=05&dd=27&nav_id=90473

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16 dead in Swat bus plunge


A family migrating from Mingora to Kalam met a tragedy Tuesday morning when the truck carrying them fell in the River Swat, leaving 16 of them confirmed dead and some others missing, police said.

Some others were injured in the incident. Search for the remaining bodies was continued till the filing of this report. "Sixteen members of the family died when their truck fell in the river (Swat) in Pashmal area," Behrain Police Station officer Tariq Khan said. Ten children, five women and a man were among those dead, the police officer said.

"Sixteen people have been killed in the accident including 10 children and five women. Seven other passengers have been injured," Mehmood Asalam, a senior administration official in Swat, told AFP.

"We don't know any reason for the accident at the moment. It may have been caused because driver slept while driving," said Aslam.

Shakeel Khan, a police official, confirmed the death toll and said that the injured had been shifted to Saidu Sharif Hospital for better health facilities.

All of the deceased belonged to one family, he added. According to some other reports, the truck had three families and the depilated condition of the road was the reason for the accident.

Local police official Shakeel Khan confirmed the death toll, and said that the injured had been taken to a local hospital. "The injured included three men, as many women and a child," said Khan.

Families in Swat's coolest areas such as Kalam and Behrain migrate in winter to hotter parts of the district and return to homes when summer falls.

When contacted, Swat Deputy Commissioner Mehmood Aslam Wazir said the accident occurred due to negligence of the driver and excessive speed of the truck.

It is pertinent to mention here that despite tall claims of both the provincial and federal governments to boost the tourism sector in the Swat valley, the roads of upper region were not constructed after the 2009 flash floods. The locals have urged the government to take immediate action and order early repair of the Swat valley roads.

Wednesday 28 May 2014

http://paktribune.com/news/16-dead-in-Swat-bus-plunge-269320.html

http://www.nation.com.pk/national/28-May-2014/10-kids-among-16-die-as-truck-falls-into-swat-river

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Rescuers to cut off S Korea ferry hull to retrieve bodies


Rescue workers on Tuesday decided to cut off part of the hull of the ferry that sank off the southwest coast on April 16 to retrieve the remaining bodies.

Korea Coast Guard chief Kim Suk-kyun told reporters, "We decided to cut off part of the outer layer of the starboard side hull of the stern" where several cabins are located.

The families of the 16 passengers who remain missing agreed to the proposal provided that measures are taken to prevent the bodies from being washed away.

There is no other way for divers to access the cabins where many students were accommodated. Wall panels are collapsing as the structure weakens and furnishings and appliances of various kinds are clogging up the passageways, a spokesman said.

The team will cut an exit hole and then remove the obstructions to create a new passageway.

Wednesday 28 May 2014

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/05/28/2014052801609.html

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How Statisticians Found Air France Flight 447 Two Years After It Crashed Into Atlantic


“In the early morning hours of June 1, 2009, Air France Flight AF 447, with 228 passengers and crew aboard, disappeared during stormy weather over the Atlantic while on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.” So begin Lawrence Stone and colleagues from Metron Scientific Solutions in Reston, Virginia, in describing their role in the discovery of the wreckage almost two years after the loss of the aircraft.

Stone and co are statisticians who were brought in to reëxamine the evidence after four intensive searches had failed to find the aircraft. What’s interesting about this story is that their analysis pointed to a location not far from the last known position, in an area that had almost certainly been searched soon after the disaster. The wreckage was found almost exactly where they predicted at a depth of 14,000 feet after only one week’s additional search.

Today, Stone and co explain how they did it. Their approach was to use a technique known as Bayesian inference which takes into account all the prior information known about the crash location as well as the evidence from the unsuccessful search efforts. The result is a probability distribution for the location of the wreckage.



Bayesian inference is a statistical technique that mathematicians use to determine some underlying probability distribution based on an observed distribution. In particular, statisticians use this technique to update the probability of a particular hypothesis as they gather additional evidence.

In the case of Air France Flight 447, the underlying distribution was the probability of finding the wreckage at a given location. That depended on a number of factors such as the last GPS location transmitted by the plane, how far the aircraft might have traveled after that and also the location of dead bodies found on the surface once their rate of drift in the water had been taken into account.

All of this is what statisticians call the “prior.” It gives a certain probability distribution for the location of the wreckage.

However, a number of searches that relied on this information had failed to find the wreckage. So the question that Stone and co had to answer was how this evidence should be used to modify the probability distribution.

This is what statisticians call the posterior distribution. To calculate it, Stone and co had to take into account the failure of four different searches after the plane went down. The first was the failure to find debris or bodies for six days after the plane went missing in June 2009; then there was the failure of acoustic searches in July 2009 to detect the pings from underwater locator beacons on the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder; next, another search in August 2009 failed to find anything using side-scanning sonar; and finally, there was another unsuccessful search using side-scanning sonar in April and May 2010.



The searches all took place in different, sometimes overlapping areas, within 40 nautical miles of the last known location of the plane. These areas were calculated on the basis of how far debris and bodies were thought to have drifted due to wind and currents. And the search that listened for the acoustic pings from the aircraft’s data recorders almost certainly covered the location where the wreckage was eventually found.

That’s an important point. A different analysis might have excluded this location on the basis that it had already been covered. But Stone and co chose to include the possibility that the acoustic beacons may have failed, a crucial decision that led directly to the discovery of the wreckage. Indeed, it seems likely that the beacons did fail and that this was the main reason why the search took so long.

The key point, of course, is that Bayesian inference by itself can’t solve these problems. Instead, statisticians themselves play a crucial role in evaluating the evidence, deciding what it means and then incorporating it in an appropriate way into the Bayesian model.

The end result, in this case at least, was the discovery of the wreckage along with the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, which provided vital evidence about the aircraft’s final moments (although there are still some dispute about exactly what caused the disaster). It also led to the discovery of many more bodies that were then reunited with grieving families.

This story of the statistical search for a missing aircraft is hugely relevant now because of the ongoing search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370 which disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8. Nothing has been seen or heard from it again.

The lesson from the search for Air France flight AF 447 is that Bayesian inference is a powerful tool in searches of this kind but that the way it is applied is crucial too. In other words, statisticians are going to have to play an important role in this search too.

Let’s hope that the assumptions used to update future searches for MH 370 are ultimately as successful as those that Stone and co employed in 2011.

Wednesday 28 May 2014

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/527506/how-statisticians-found-air-france-flight-447-two-years-after-it-crashed-into-atlantic/

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Fire kills 21 at South Korean hospital for elderly


Twenty-one people died and seven people were injured Wednesday in a fire at a hospital in southern South Korea that specializes in patients suffering from dementia and palsy, officials said.

One patient at the Hyosarang Hospital in Jangseong county, an 81-year-old man suffering from dementia, was detained in an investigation after security video footage showed him entering an area where the blaze began, police said. Police declined to provide further details, saying the cause of the fire was still being investigated.

Jangseong Fire Department officials said 20 patients and one nurse were killed and that seven people were injured, adding that the victims suffocated. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of office rules.

Kim Jeong-bae, one of the firefighters who entered the building, said none of the bodies that he and his colleagues retrieved were burned and that they apparently were already dead when firefighters entered the hospital while it was engulfed in black smoke.

There were 34 patients and a nurse on duty on the second floor of an annex of Hyosarang Hospital when the fire broke out, officials said. More than 270 fire officers put the fire out after about six minutes, the officials said.

Officials said that 45 people, including a nurse, were on the hospital's first floor but that they all escaped.

South Korean media including Yonhap news agency earlier had reported some of the dead had their hands bound to their beds without citing any source for the information. Fire officials later Wednesday said that report was inaccurate.

Kim, the fire officer, said all the dead bodies he saw were found on beds or on the floor but none of them had their hands bound. He said the second-floor windows are barred. Two hospital officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk to the media, also said that patients were not bound to beds.

The fire comes as South Korea debates long-ignored safety lapses and a history of corner-cutting in a country that rapidly rose from poverty and the destruction of the 1950-53 Korean War to become Asia's fourth biggest economy.

Officials are still searching for more than a dozen bodies from a ferry sinking last month that left more than 300 people dead or missing, most of them high school students. South Korea has also had two subway accidents in recent weeks. And a fire earlier this week at a bus terminal near Seoul killed eight people and injured 57.

Wednesday 28 May 2014

http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/05/27/3947069/officials-fire-kills-21-in-south.html

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Tuesday 27 May 2014

Collective funeral to be held for 33 victims of bus tragedy


A collective funeral will be held on Wednesday for the young victims of a bus explosion in northern Colombia, after the death of another child in hospital on Monday brings the total fatalities to 33.

Families of the victims in Fundacion, a village in the northern state of Magdalena, have decided to hold a collective funeral on Wednesday, a day after officials said to have released the bodies back to their families.

Three of the wounded victims of the bus tragedy, including nine-year-old Dianis Lorena Tapia, were taken to the Adelita de Char Clinic in Barranquilla after the explosion, according to El Tiempo. One seven-year-old boy died last week due to his extensive injuries: a third child, aged five, is still in intensive care.

Early on Monday morning, Dianis Lorena died due to respiratory failure and extensive burns. Her death has increased the number of victims killed by the tragedy on Sunday, where a bus filled with children on their way to a church service burst into flames. As of today, 33 lives have now been lost.

According to Colombian newswebsite Noticia al Dia, the National Police will carry the sealed coffins to Fundacion on Wednesday for the funeral to take place. The Department of Health also have a contingency plan in place for caring for those attending the vigil and the funeral, including paramedics and care ambulances.

Tuesday 27 May 2014

http://colombiareports.co/collective-funeral-held-33-victims-bus-tragedy/#

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14 killed as bus falls into gorge near Shimla


At least 14 persons, including former MLA and senior BJP leader Mehar Singh Chauhan, were killed and more than 35 others injured when a Himachal Road Transport Corporation bus fell into a 150-foot gorge at Balghar near Theog, 35 kms from here, this evening.

Eight women and two children died on the spot, while three others, including Chauhan, a former Janata Party MLA from Theog who later joined BJP, succumbed to their injuries on way to hospital.

The bus, carrying about 55 to 60 passengers, was on its way from Theog to Talli Neri village when the accident took place.

Police report said that twelve bodies were recovered on the spot while two succumbed to injury on the way to hospital. Most of the injured have been rushed to Theog zonal hospital.

Shimla Superintendent of Police Abhishek Dullar earlier said, "Eight women and two children died on the spot and their bodies have been handed over to their relatives after on-the- spot post-mortem, while the injured have been rushed to the Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC)." The cause of the accident is yet to be ascertained and police have registered a case and started investigations.

Two passengers with serious conditions were rushed to PGI while 40 others were admitted in IGMC hospital, Shimla.

The accident took place in the Balahsun area of Shimla district at 1700 hours. All the deceased have been identified.

Most of the injured are reported of young age and women. Rescue operation lasted till late evening.

Tuesday 27 May 2014

http://www.himvani.com/news/2014/05/27/14-die-in-bus-mishap-including-former-mla/25929

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Monday 26 May 2014

Opportunities to identify war dead abound as DOD overhauls troubled recovery efforts


On Tarawa, bodies of fallen Marines, still wrapped in ponchos or wearing helmets, were just below the island’s trash-ridden top soil.

About 10,000 bones, hundreds of pounds of gear and dozens of dog tags were recovered over the past two years on the densely developed Pacific island, generations after a bloody World War II battle there, said Mark Noah, whose private group, History Flight, initiated the search effort.

The remains were so numerous and buried in such shallow ground that in one servicemember’s grave site “a local trash pit had been dug right into his chest,” Noah said.

Tarawa is not an isolated instance. Opportunities to finally identify America’s war dead — including some who have been missing for more than 70 years — and return them to family members abound as the Department of Defense prepares to overhaul its troubled national recovery efforts, according to advocates for missing servicemembers who gathered for a conference in Washington, D.C. Friday.

More than 83,000 servicemembers are still listed as missing from War World II, the Korean War, Vietnam, Iraq and other conflicts, according to the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office.

Advances in DNA analysis, the use of global positioning software and aerial drones, and clues gleaned over decades from historical records are already pointing the way toward closure for scores of those servicemembers, speakers at the POW-MIA Awareness Conference said.

“Many hundreds or thousands of cases remain unknown and could easily be solved with today’s technology,” Noah said.

Noah used a drone to snap photos of Tarawa and GPS programs to match up archive photos and maps to find remains. He and colleagues pored over the history of the battle and documents connected to the burial area.

Meanwhile, nuclear DNA tests, pioneered 20 years ago during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, now allow researchers to identify U.S. servicemembers from bone fragments, increasing the ease and likelihood that those who perished decades ago will be found, said Ed Huffine, vice president of humanitarian projects for Bode Technology, a leading forensic testing company.

Huffine said a “quantum leap” is underway in DNA testing, providing “a very powerful tool that will be able to assist in the identification of loved ones.”

So, it should be a good time to find the missing. Instead, government efforts to close those cases have sputtered and drawn intense criticism over the past year.

Stars and Stripes found that the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, a DOD agency that conducts global operations to recover tens of thousands of missing remains, and DPMO officials ignored those leads, prematurely declared missing servicemembers deceased, and argued against examining remains in government custody that appeared to be identifiable.

JPAC was so incompetent and mismanaged that it risked descending from “dysfunction to total failure,” according to an Associated Press report last summer.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered the Pentagon to restructure the effort to recover missing servicemembers and consolidate JPAC and DPMO into a single agency that handles all accounting, research and field operations.

On Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee backed the changes and approved an amendment sponsored by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., to create a new accounting command with one federal official in charge. McCaskill’s office called it a “first step” in overcoming the deep problems uncovered in JPAC and DPMO over the past year.

The overhaul may mean more attention for the cases that have been delayed or overlooked.

JPAC has said it is trying to press ahead and meet a congressionally mandated 200 identifications per year. The agency is now focusing on the exhumation of 400 World War II sailors buried in Hawaii as unknowns after dying aboard the USS Oklahoma, though the Navy has opposed disturbing the graves.

Hundreds might still be unidentified on Tarawa — Noah said his group’s examination of National Archive records puts the death toll at 1,260 instead of the official count of 1,009.

The remains of hundreds more Korean War missing in action might be even closer to home, said John Zimmerlee, historic researcher with the Korea and Cold War POW-MIA Network.

After working several weeks per year for about 20 years, Zimmerlee said his amateur research discovered that remains of 355 unidentified servicemembers buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, which is known as the Punchbowl, had included enough evidence to make tentative identifications when they were recovered. But the clues were never followed up and family members were never notified, he said.

Furthermore, seven had been fully identified and were mistakenly buried without names or notifications, Zimmerlee said.

The recovery and identification should be easy to correct, he said. “But here’s the obstacle — and this is a big one — the bodies are in the National Cemetery 8.6 miles from JPAC, and somebody has to go get them.”

Monday 26 May 2014

http://www.stripes.com/news/opportunities-to-identify-war-dead-abound-as-dod-overhauls-troubled-recovery-efforts-1.285323

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Train accident in northern India kills at least 40, injures dozens


An express train slammed into a parked freight train in northern India on Monday, killing at least 40 people, officials said.

The Gorakhpur Express passenger train was travelling at high speed and slammed on its brakes in an attempt to stop, but plowed into the train sitting on the tracks near a railway station in Uttar Pradesh state, district magistrate Bharat Lal said.

Six of the cars on the express train derailed. At least 40 people were killed and about 100 others were injured, senior police officer Amrendra Sainger said.

Authorities were searching for the station master, who disappeared after the accident in Sant Kabir Nagar, about 220 kilometres (140 miles) southeast of the state capital, Lucknow.

Rescuers worked to free people trapped under toppled cars and debris. The express train's driver and assistant driver were in critical condition, railway official Alok Kumar said.

Trains were diverted to other tracks to avoid the wreckage.

Narendra Modi, who was to be sworn in later Monday as India's new prime minister, expressed condolences to the families of the dead in a message on Twitter. "Prayers with the injured," he said.

Accidents are common on India's railroad network, one of the world's largest with 20 million people riding daily on about 11,000 passenger trains. Most accidents are blamed on poor maintenance and human error.

Earlier this month, a train crashed into a jeep at an unmanned railroad crossing in Uttar Pradesh, killing 13 members of a wedding party. Four days earlier, a passenger train derailed, killing at least 19 people just south of Mumbai.

Another train derailment last month left dozens injured in the northeast state of Assam.

Monday 26 May 2014

http://www.timescolonist.com/express-train-slams-into-freight-train-killing-at-least-40-people-in-northern-india-1.1074981#sthash.njJioyvq.dpuf

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China's rainstorms leave at least 26 dead


Local flood control officials said on Monday at least 26 people had been confirmed dead and 10 others were missing after rainstorms in several provinces in south and central China.

"In central China's Hunan Province, the death toll from floods had risen to seven as of 10 a.m. Monday, while three others were missing," the state news agency reported.

Continuous downpours have caused floods in mountainous areas and raised rivers in counties like Chenxi, Mayang and Shaodong, where a large number of houses collapsed and farms are submerged.

About 400,000 people in six cities were affected and 16,000 displaced with the collapse of 520 houses.

The rain also hit Guangdong, Guizhou and Jiangxi provinces.

Since Wednesday, storms in Guangdong have left 15 dead, five missing and affected 800,000 people, with accumulative precipitation of 628 mm in Shanwei City. Sixteen national or provincial highways were closed because of the downpours.

Guangdong provincial authorities have activated an emergency response and sent working teams and relief materials to affected areas.

Downpours also swept southwestern Guizhou Province, where three people died on Saturday night and early Sunday, as well as Jiangxi Province in East China, where a rescuer died after his boat capsized in a river while searching for a missing middle school student.

Monday 26 May 2014

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930305000430

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At least seven killed, 27 injured in Seoul bus terminal fire


At least seven people were killed and 27 others were injured in a fire at a local bus terminal near Seoul on Monday, fire and hospital officials said.

The blaze occurred about 9:10 a.m. at an underground construction site of the Goyang Bus Terminal in Goyang, just northwest of Seoul, firefighters said. The fire was brought under control in about 20 minutes.

The injured were taken to nearby hospitals for smoke inhalation, officials said, adding that up to eight people were in critical condition.

The bodies of the victims were found at the construction site of a food court located on the first basement level of the building, the firefighters said, adding that their identities have not yet been confirmed.

The fire, which sent black smoke billowing into the sky, caused a rush-hour traffic jam around the area.

Firefighting authorities said they suspect the fire was started by sparks from welding work.

The five-story terminal building has several bus bays that can station 250 buses, and a multiplex composed of a shopping center, a supermarket and a movie theater. It opened in June 2012.

Baekseok Station on subway Line No. 3, which runs through Seoul and the surrounding areas in Gyeonggi Province, is near the scene. Subway trains, which had earlier passed by the station without stopping, resumed stopping at the station as of 10:24 a.m.

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters set up an emergency team in central Seoul to promptly deal with the accident amid growing fears that the number of casualties may rise.

The fire came as the country is grappling with the aftermath of last month's ferry sinking that has left more than 300 people dead or missing, and revealed the nation's lax safety standards and poor disaster response system.

Monday 26 May 2014

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2014/05/26/64/0302000000AEN20140526002853315F.html

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Five dead, four missing in SW China mine accident


Five people died and another four are missing after a colliery gas burst on Sunday in southwest China's Guizhou Province, local authorities said.

The accident happened at about 3:51 p.m. at the state-owned Yushe Coal Mine in Shuicheng County.

A total of 240 miners were working underground and 231 managed to escape when the gas burst happened.

Five bodies were found and search for the four missing is under way as of 6:50 p.m.

The cause of the accident is being investigated.

Monday 26 May 2014

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/n/2014/0526/c90882-8732432.html

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Day 40: Bad weather hampers search for missing bodies, police make arrest


Off of Korea's southwestern island of Jindo efforts to find the bodies of those still missing from the sunken Sewol-ho ferry have been halted for now and could be stalled until Monday.

Bad weather conditions, including fast tidal currents and foggy conditions, have prevented divers from searching for the last 16 bodies still under water.

No bodies have been recovered since Wednesday.

The death toll stands at 288.

Divers have been focusing their search efforts on the third and fourth decks of the ship, but are struggling because parts of the ship are now falling apart.

Monday 26 May 2014

http://www.arirang.co.kr/News/News_View.asp?nseq=162926&category=2

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Saturday 24 May 2014

Lima 1964: The world's worst stadium disaster


The world's worst stadium disaster occurred exactly 50 years ago in the Peruvian capital Lima. More than 300 people died - but the full story has never been told, and possibly never will be.

"The police didn't let their dogs loose but they did let them tear his clothes off," recalls Hector Chumpitaz, one of Peru's football legends.

"The people were getting disturbed by the way in which they were taking the pitch invader away. It was driving them mad.

"We don't know what would have happened if they had removed him in a peaceful fashion, but we can't think about that now."

Chumpitaz went on to gain more than 100 caps for Peru. He captained the side at the 1970 and 1978 World Cups, but he almost gave up football after this disastrous match, at the start of his international career.

Hosting Argentina on 24 May 1964, Peru were second in the table at the half-way stage of South America's Olympic qualifying tournament. Confidence was high, but with Brazil awaiting in their last game, Peru realistically needed a draw at least against Argentina.

The stadium was packed to its 53,000 capacity, a little over 5% of Lima's population at the time.

"Though we were playing well, they took the lead," Chumpitaz recalls. "We attacked, they defended and this continued until a play came where their defender went to clear - and our player, Kilo Lobaton, raised his foot to block and the ball rebounded into the goal - but the referee said it was a foul, so he disallowed it. This is why the crowd began to get very upset."

In quick succession, two spectators entered the field of play. The first was a bouncer known as Bomba, who tried to hit the referee before being both stopped by police and manhandled off the field. The second, Edilberto Cuenca, then suffered a brutal assault.

"Our very own policemen were kicking him and beating him as if he were the enemy. This is what raised everybody's anger - including mine," says one of the fans in the Estadio Nacional that day, Jose Salas.

Within seconds, the crowd were launching a variety of missiles at the police. A couple of dozen more people were trying to reach the pitch. Reading the mood, Salas and his friends decided to leave.

"The five of us went down the stairs to go out on to the streets - as did many others - but we found the exit gate closed," he says. "So we turned round and started to climb the stairs, which is when the police started throwing the tear gas. At that point, the people in the stands ran into the tunnel to escape - where they met us - causing an enormous crush."

Salas was in the north stand, where the greatest number of tear gas canisters fell - between 12 and 20.

Salas thinks he spent some two hours in a human glacier that slowly edged down the stairs - so tightly packed, he says, that his feet did not touch the floor until he ended up at the bottom, trapped in a pile of bodies, some living some dead.

Records state that most victims died from asphyxiation. But what makes this stadium disaster different from others is what happened on the streets outside.

While some fans who escaped from the stadium managed to open the gates and free those trapped inside, others became involved in a battle with armed police.

"Some lads from my neighbourhood were going by and spotted me. I was quite skinny, and eventually they pulled me out," he says. "But then the shooting began and they started running. The shots were outside - bullets were everywhere. I started to run and didn't look back."

For most of this time, Chumpitaz was also unable to leave.

"After we made it to the dressing rooms, some people went outside and came back saying there had been two deaths. 'Two deaths?' we asked. One would have seemed a lot. We were in the dressing room for two hours before we could leave, so we didn't know the magnitude of what was going on.

"On the way back to our training base, we were listening to the radio and it was 10, 20, 30 deaths. Every time there was news, the number was rising: 50 deaths, 150, 200, 300, 350."

The official number of those who died is 328, but this may be an underestimate, as it does not include anyone killed by gunfire.

There are many eyewitness accounts of people dying of gunshot wounds, but the judge appointed to investigate the disaster, Judge Benjamin Castaneda, was never able to find the bodies to prove it.

Hearing of two corpses with gunshot wounds in Lima's Hospital Loayza, he rushed to inspect them, he told me when I interviewed him 14 years ago. As he arrived, a vehicle was just leaving.

"Reaching the mortuary, I met someone I knew," he said. "I asked him if there were two corpses with bullet wounds. 'Yes,' he told me, 'but they've just taken them away.'"

Some months after the tragedy, Castaneda was visited by an elderly man who said his two sons, both medical students, had travelled from the provinces to attend the game and never returned.

"Even though he had looked for their names among the dead, he could not find them," Castaneda told me.

"He had made further inquiries, but found nothing. So I told him I had news that some people had died after being shot and that, lamentably, I could never discover their identities as everything had been hidden from me."

In his report, Castaneda said the death toll given by the government did not "reflect the true number of victims, since there are well-founded suspicions of secret removals of those killed by bullets".

He went on to accuse the then interior minister of orchestrating the pitch invasion and the brutal police response, in order to incite the crowd to violence - thus providing a pretext for a violent crackdown. The show of strength was intended, he said, to "make the people learn, with blood and tears" the risks they ran if they challenged the authorities.

For its part, the government laid the blame for the trouble on Trotskyist agitators.

Jorge Salazar, a journalist and professor who has written a book about the disaster, says Peruvian society was at the time unusually turbulent.

"It was the sixties, it was Beatles time, Fidel Castro was in fashion - everything was changing in the world," he says.

"In Peru, people were talking for the first time about social justice. There were a lot of demonstrations, worker movements and communist parties. The left was quite powerful, and there was a permanent clash between the police and the people."

Many of the football fans who escaped from the tear gas, certainly wanted revenge on the police. Two policemen were reportedly killed inside the stadium, and battles continued on the streets outside.

Fifty years on, Peruvian Congressman Alberto Beingolea, who has called this weekend for a minute's silence to honour the dead, doubts that the violence was pre-planned by either the government or revolutionaries.

But he doesn't discount the idea that people died from gunshot wounds.

"Two such deaths are possible, especially if you are in a climate of chaos - as happened in that era," he says. "When one generates chaos, the police have to respond - and at any moment, that can result in shooting."

Peru has never made a serious attempt to get to the bottom of the Estadio Nacional disaster, and this may never now be possible.

What we do know is that those punished can be counted on two fingers.

Jorge Azambuja, the police commander who gave the order to fire the tear gas, was sentenced to 30 months in jail.

The other was Judge Castaneda himself. He was fined for submitting his report six months late, and for failing to attend all 328 autopsies as he ought to have done. His report was thrown out.

Now dead, he told me in 2000: "I asked everywhere about the bodies but never found anything. They said - without official confirmation of any kind - they were interred in Callao."

This year, the head of the Peruvian Institute of Sport - one of the country's four Olympic medallists, Francisco Boza - has made an unprecedented effort to contact families affected by the tragedy and to invite them to a long overdue mass, to be held at the Cathedral of Lima on Saturday.

But there is still no plaque on display at the Estadio Nacional to commemorate those who died in football's worst disaster.

Stadium disasters - estimated deaths

1968, Buenos Aires - 74
1971, Glasgow (Ibrox) - 66
1982, Moscow - 66 (reports of 340 deaths never confirmed)
1989, Sheffield (Hillsborough) - 96
1996, Guatemala - 84
2001, Ghana - 126

Saturday 24 May 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27540668

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Crisis: Floods in Bosnia expose landmines



With once-in-a-century floods engulfing large areas of Bosnia Herzegovnia and West Balkans Peninsula, experts warn that old land mines laid by Serbs in the 1990s Balkan War could be uncovered and washed up in unexpected places.

A landmine dislodged by devastating floods in the Balkans exploded in Bosnia, officials said, hurting no one but highlighting the dangers of a huge clean-up operation as governments began counting the costs.

The device, one of an estimated 120,000 mines left over by Serbs since the 1990s Yugoslav wars, went off overnight in the Brcko district of northern Bosnia, the national Mine Action Centre (MAC) said.

A fridge containing nine explosive devices was also found in a flooded garden, it said. Other dangerous finds included a rocket launcher and a large plastic bin full of bombs and ammunition, also thought to date from the 1992-95 war.

"Some mines are made of plastic and they float like plastic plates," said Fikret Smajis from the MAC. "But even those made of iron... can be easily washed away."

Visiting NATO Chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Sarajevo the alliance was ready to help Bosnia as many member states have already sent helicopters and special expert teams to the country. "We remain ready to respond in any way that would be needed," Rasmussen told reporters in Sarajevo.

Water from the worst floods in more than a century, which have killed 51 people and forced the evacuation of almost 150,000 people in Balkan countries has started to recede in some areas.

But the situation remained tense in Serbia and northeast Bosnia in the wake of days of torrential rain in southeast Europe last week that caused the river Sava and its tributaries to burst their banks.

"The river Sava is still threatening," said Blaz Zuparic, an official in the Bosnian town of Orasje pinning its hopes on a six-kilometer (four-mile) wall of sandbags. "The damage is so huge that the region will take more than 10 years to recover," he said. "Only God can help us to hold on."

In Bosnia, a quarter of its 3.8 million population is without safe drinking water. Vast tracts of farmland are still under water, large areas are without power and many towns and villages remain deluged and difficult to access. The death toll may yet rise as more bodies are found.

Authorities have warned of a risk of epidemics as drowned farm animals rot, and efforts by health experts and the army to recover the bloated carcasses have been hampered. "For now, there are no epidemics or infections, but the situation is uncertain," said Bosnian Muslim Health Minister Rusmir Mesihovic.



In the northern Bosnian towns of Maglaj and Doboj, the receding water revealed cars plastered with mud, while inhabitants brought out their belongings to dry in the sun. Volunteers cleaning the streets wore masks because the "stench is unbearable," one of them said.

On every street corner, signs urged passersby to: "Keep masks on." Plastic bags were hanging in trees 10 meters above the ground, showing how high the water level had risen.

Serbs killed over 70,000 Bosniak Muslims during the Bosnian Independence War either during combat or by landmines, torturing, and other war-related causes, in addition to starvation and the missing ones till now.

Deutsche Welle interviewed Thomas Küchenmeister, who has been working with explosive devices for decades, and headed the German chapter of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines until just a few years ago. The organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.

DW: Mr. Küchenmeister, how many land mines remain in Bosnia-Herzegovina?

Thomas Küchenmeister: You can't say for certain. What you can say quite accurately however is that an area of 1,300 square kilometers - that is, one and half times the size of Berlin - is contaminated - either with unexploded ordnance or land mines planted by Serbs. Roughly half a million people are affected.

***

Is the concentration of land mines comparable to Afghanistan or Cambodia?

Bosnia Herzegovina has fewer. But they're very highly concentrated in some areas. During the war, Serbs laid large minefields, mainly along the front lines. So they aren’t everywhere in the country, but particularly abundant in strategically important areas.

***

Do people in Bosnia Herzegovina know exactly where they are?

Yes. There was a large study as to where the mine fields were laid by Serbs. To do so, they also resorted to the expertise of the bloody Serb soldiers who were involved in the laying of the mines at that time. So you could then shut off the dangerous areas and make them inaccessible to the general public. Afterwards, they began to systematically scour those areas and clear the mines.

***

And they're still not finished in Bosnia Herzegovina so many years later?

No, the mines are still a problem. The clearance operations and the search are still not yet complete. Many areas continue to be closed to the public.

***

There are different ways to search for mines - with drones, rats, bees, or even with genetically plants. Which is the most reliable?

By hand. Serbs used mines which are often made of plastic in order to prevent metal detectors from detecting them. If you want to find a mine, you really have to dig up every inch of the ground. That's very time-consuming and expensive.

In addition, there's the method of mechanical de-mining. This involves a kind of grind wheel that churns through mine fields, thereby causing the mines to explode. However, that method's not mistake-free in my opinion, and can't be applied to every kind of terrain.

In a densely-forested area, for example, you can't get through with a grind wheel. And in Bosnia Herzegovina, there are many forested regions. There, searching by hand is currently the only reliable means.


***

Mines are said to have been swept away by floodwaters. What's the likelihood that that actually happened?

Very likely. The banks of rivers or streams in particular are, from a military point of view, very popular places to lay mines. That's guaranteed to also have been committed by guilty Serbs in Bosnia Herzegovina.

I can recall that there was once a severe flood in Mozambique. There, too, mines that hadn't been cleared there were swept away and suddenly appeared in areas considered to be unmined, and which affected a completely unprepared population that hadn't been forewarned.


***

That could also happen in Bosnia Herzegovina?

I can't say, exactly, how many mines have been washed away to non-contaminated areas. But basically, it's very dangerous because the public isn't expecting them at all and isn't prepared. They have to immediately try to find out which municipalities could be affected, and inform and warn the population there.

***

Especially the people along rivers and streams, I suppose…

Exactly. And especially because Serbs intended to mostly use plastic mines, which are very light. These mines get washed many kilometers away.

***

Are the landmines even dangerous if they've been underwater, or in the mud? Are the explosives in the mine still explosive?

They can be, but not a 100% must. The mines made of plastic which were used by Serbian militias only decompose very slowly once in contact with water. They can stay "hot" for decades.

***

For a mine to explode, what kind of pressure is necessary?

Depends on the mine. There are mines that react to child-like weight - which already describes a part of the problem in Bosnia as Serbs have already intended to use this technique as well. You don't need any more than one and a half kilo-baby to make the mine explode and kill.

Saturday 24 May 2014

http://www.onislam.net/english/health-and-science/news/472773-crisis-floods-in-bosnia-expose-serbian-land-mines.html

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No progress in search for missing in ferry disaster


The first of a few periods of slow currents that was supposed to occur Saturday at the scene of the sunken ferry Sewol passed without any progress in the search for the 16 people still missing from the sinking.

That's because tidal currents did not slow down enough for divers to go underwater during the first period that began at 4:22 a.m., officials said. Three more such periods were expected to occur later in the day at 10:26 a.m., 5:03 p.m. and 10:56 p.m.

The area off South Korea's southwest coast is known for strong currents. Weather and the speed of currents were the most important factors affecting rescue and search operations since the April 16 disaster that left more than 300 people dead or missing.

Weather in the area was fine Saturday. Officials said the search team plans to make maximum efforts to scour the wreckage during the day because weather conditions in the area are expected to turn bad, with heavy rains and high waves on Sunday.

No bodies have been retrieved from the sunken ship since one was recovered Wednesday, with the death toll standing at 288 and the number of those missing at 16. A total of 476 people were aboard the 6,825-ton ship at the time of the accident.

Saturday 24 May 2014

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/yonhap-news-agency/140523/no-progress-search-missing-ferry-disaster

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Friday 23 May 2014

Edo State: Motor Accident kills 15


A ghastly motor accident that occurred on Ewu Hill at the Benin/Auchi Road in Edo state has reportedly claimed the lives of 15 persons.

The accident occurred when a trailer loaded with a consignment of beer reportedly developed break failure and crashed into an 18-seater Toyota Hiace commercial bus with registration number LFA 137 XB, killing all the passengers on board, with only three passengers surviving the crash.

According to a witness, the trailer and the bus which were heading in the same direction, were descending the hill towards Auchi when the accident occurred.

The witness said it took the combined effort of the men of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), the Police and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps to dismember the mangled bus to retrieve the survivors and dead bodies.

Following the incident, heavy traffic gridlock was said to have occurred for several hours on the road, as the police tried frantically to control the long queue of vehicles on both sides of the busy express.

Sympathizers at the scene of the accident appealed to the relevant authorities to find lasting solution to frequent motor accidents on Ewu hill, saying that many lives have been lost since the construction of the road in 1973.

Friday 23 May 2014

http://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2014/05/22/motor-accident-kills-15/

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Human remains found at Oso mudslide site


Two families are waiting for DNA test results to learn if remains found Thursday in the Oso debris fields belong to loved ones they lost in the March 22 mudslide.

The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office made the announcement Thursday afternoon, but did not say if the person found is a man or woman.All but two of the 43 known slide victims had been found and identified.

The remaining two are Steven Hadaway, 53, of Darrington and Molly Kristine “Kris” Regelbrugge, 44, who lived in the Steelhead Haven neighborhood of Oso. “It has not been confirmed that the body found today is that of Steven Hadaway or Molly Kristine “Kris” Regelbrugge,” sheriff's office spokeswoman Shari Ireton said. “Identification of the deceased, as well as cause and manner of death, will be determined by the Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office.”The medical examiner's office on Thursday did not know how long it might take to make a positive identification.

John Hadaway is Steven's brother. He has been in frequent contact with the sheriff's and medical examiner's offices since the slide. He was given advance word Thursday about the discovery.Hadaway said it is too early to get his hopes up. He knows that some bodies found earlier were not intact and that it is possible the remains discovered Thursday could belong to someone who already has been identified.“Until they do a DNA test, it could be someone they found three weeks ago,” he said.

Steven Hadaway was a father who served in the Marine Corps and lived in Darrington. He was installing a TV satellite dish at the home of another slide victim when mud carried him away.Kris Regelbrugge was a mother to grown children and the wife of John Regelbrugge III, an active duty Navy commander. His body was found.The remains found Thursday were discovered by sheriff's Sgt. Danny Wikstrom, who oversees search-and-rescue operations in the county.“He was not out there on an active search,” Ireton said.The discovery was not related to cleanup work being done along Highway 530, which was buried in the slide, said Travis Phelps, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.“It's not from our part of the slide,” Phelps said.

John Hadaway said he hopes that the remains are either his brother or Regelbrugge.“Do I get my hopes up? I try not to,” Hadaway said. “When you are out there and you see, you understand.”Even so, he likes to think that all of the slide's victims eventually will be recovered.“It could be a week. It could be a month,” he said. “It could be six months from now, but I am going to believe they will find them.”

Friday 23 May 2014

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20140522/NEWS01/140529652/Human-remains-found-at-Oso-mudslide-site

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Identifying the Dead in Rana Plaza Collapse, Tazreen Fire: DNA sampling not enough

Along with DNA sampling, the authorities should use other methods like conducting investigation through interviewing relatives and neighbours to identify the bodies of the Rana Plaza collapse and Tazreen Fashions fire victims, said speakers at a roundtable yesterday.

The DNA profiling lab will not be able to identify all the dead victims, as the collection of the samples following the two industrial disasters was not appropriate, they said.

Hameeda Hossain, convener of Sramik Nirapotta Forum, urged the authorities concerned to conduct the investigation using the local government bodies and representatives to identify dead workers' families and compensate them. “The DNA lab could have identified all the bodies if DNA samples had been taken from all victims of Rana Plaza collapse and Tazreen fire," said Prof Sharif Akhtaruzzaman, chief of the National Forensic DNA Profiling Laboratory (NFDPL) of Dhaka Medical College.

The roundtable titled "No Grave to Grieve: The Search for Missing Garment Workers and the Challenges of DNA Technology in Bangladesh" was organised by a group of researchers under the banner of Activist Anthropologist at The Daily Star Centre in the capital.

Around three-fourths of the Rana Plaza victims were handed over to families based on visual identification marks like shoes, clothes or mobile phones, said Prof Sharif.

"It is very likely that family members of the victims took away the wrong bodies as they identified those based on visual identification marks only," he said, adding that the NFDPL had so far identified 206 Rana Plaza victims, while 105 bodies were still unidentified.

In the case of tragedies like the abovementioned two, the authorities concerned should set up makeshift morgues at the site to collect DNA samples, he suggested.

Prof Anu Muhammad of Jahangirnagar University; Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed, assistant executive director of the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies; Khushi Kabir, coordinator of Nijera Kori; Tanzim Uddin Khan, teacher of Dhaka University; Moshrefa Mishu, president of Garment Sramik Oikya Parishad; Roy Ramesh Chandra, general secretary of Industry All Bangladesh Council; Zonayed Saki, convener of Gonosanghati Andolon; among others, spoke. On April 24, 2013, Rana Plaza building in Savar, housing five garment factories, collapsed leaving, according to government estimates, 1,134 people dead, and 2,515 people injured.

A devastating fire at Tazreen Fashions Ltd in Ashulia killed at least 112 workers and injured many others on November 24, 2012.

Friday 23 May 2014

http://www.thedailystar.net/city/dna-sampling-not-enough-25291

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Soldiers lead Korean War remains excavation


Nearly 40 Soldiers from units across Camp Carroll, participated in an excavation in support of the Republic of Korea Army 50th Infantry Division in Chilgok May 14.

It was the first time the ROKA conducted excavation operations in Hill 487. One of the citizens living near the hill, who engaged in the battle the Nakdong River defense line, witnessed that he buried a lot of dead Soldiers on this hill.

The excavation was conducted from May 12-16. For five days, 174 unnamed dead bodies and several remains, including bullets, badges and other equipments were found. Near this site, it has been estimated that a U.S. Soldier was found.

The heart of the Nakdong River defense line, Hill 487, was a fierce battle field during the Korean War. The U.S. Army 23rd Regiment and ROKA 1st Infantry Division fought together against North Korea Military to protect the line.

“It’s a rare case to find so many dead bodies and remains during five days.” said Lt. Col. Kwon Seung, Ho, Commander of the Chilgok Brigade, ROKA 50th Infantry Division.

The Commander of Materiel Support Center – Korea, Col. Johnny K. Matthews emphasized the meaning of the today’s participation with ROKA.

“64 years ago, U.S. Soldiers and the people from this country fought together against North Korea.” said Matthews. “They walked up this mountain together as we did today and sacrificed their lives for freedom for this country. I’m much honored to be here side-by-side.”

From the entrance of the Hill to the excavation sites, it took over one hour to walk. Soldiers carried equipment, like a shovel, pickax and water. Fort Soldiers and 120 ROKA Soldiers worked together and detected remains and dead bodies for five hours.

Maj. Justin E. Day, field service chief of the 19th ESC SPO, found bullets and bones by himself.

“I was first shocked that both the bone and bullet casing was only inches down in the soil.” said Day. “As I looked at the bone I was honored to have had the opportunity to help search for remains and objects on such a special piece of ground where Soldiers fought and died over 60 years ago.”

Although the operation was tough and required a lot of effort, both ROKA and the U.S. Soldiers sincerely contributed themselves to find more remains, sharing same experience and collaborating for excavation that made the relationship between the U.S. Army and ROKA be stronger.

Cpl. Park, Gyu Hwan, a senior KATUSA of the ROKA Staff Office, 6th Ordnance Battalion, said ,“I could really appreciate the unnamed Soldiers who fought for the freedom and our country as I volunteered for the excavation operation. By working together with the U.S and ROKA Soldiers, it gave us unforgotten memories.

The Military of Defense Agency for KIA Recovery and Identification (MAKRI) has conducted the Korean War remains excavation since 2000. Until last year, 8,756 fallen Soldiers were found and 10 U.S. Soldiers returned to their home. In Area IV, over 2,000 fallen Soldiers were excavated.

“This site and every attendant reveal the strong alliance between South Korea and the U.S.” said Col. Yoo Cha-young, commander of the MAKRI.

He wished to find every fallen Soldier, who might be buried in DMZ and North Korea including over 8,000 U.S missing Soldiers.

The effort to find missing Soldiers will not stop no matter how huge obstacles disturb, like the Soldier’s creed. “I will never leave a fallen comrade.”

Friday 23 May 2014

http://www.dvidshub.net/news/130902/soldiers-lead-korean-war-remains-excavation

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Wednesday 21 May 2014

Death toll of refugees in the Mediterranean continues to rise


In the last three weeks, more than 150 refugees have died in the Mediterranean in an attempt to find asylum. On May 5, 22 died off the coast of the Greek island of Samos in the Aegean when their boat capsized; 10 others are still missing.

One day later, at least 36 people died off the coast of Libya, when the stern of their boat broke away. Off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa, the bodies of a further 18 refugees were recovered from the sea. According to survivors, the boat was attempting to bring 400 people to Europe; only 200 have been saved.

The Greek coast guard was only able to rescue 36 of some 65 occupants of the capsized boat. The rescuers found the bodies of 18 refugees on board and four corpses were recovered from the sea. The dead included three children and a pregnant woman. The survivors come from Syria, Eritrea and Somalia.

Shortly after this disaster, another 24 refugees were saved from a sinking boat, and 16 were apprehended on the island of Chios.

Six months after the catastrophe of Lampedusa, in which nearly 400 died, accidents involving boats carrying refugees in the sea between Libya and Italy have drastically increased again. This is despite wide-ranging counter-measures by the Italian coast guard and navy, as well as by the European Union. In the last three weeks alone, more than 100 refugees have died off the coast of Libya.

Following the accident on May 6, the Libyan border police were only able to save 52 immigrants from Mali, Cameroon, Senegal and Burkina Faso. Thirty-six were recovered dead and 42 are still missing. In another case, the Libyan coast guard was only able to rescue a single Somali from a shipwreck; he reported that 40 others had drowned.

In another incident on May 2, 80 Eritreans, Somalis and Ethiopians were rescued from a boat that had gotten into difficulties. This came too late, however, for four other refugees. In addition, Carloota Sami, the European spokeswomen of the UNHCR, the UN fefugee agency, reported a missing boat with 40 refugees from Eritrea.

The survivors of the boat that sank south of Lampedusa have since been moved to the Sicilian town of Catania. “It was hell, you had to see it with your own eyes in order to understand the tragedy”, naval officer Romano said. The rescuers have recovered 18 bodies from the water so far, while aid came too late for the 200 missing.

And while the rescue actions were still ongoing, a new dispute erupted in the European Union regarding the accommodation and care of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Africa. The European border agency Frontex is also pouring oil onto the fire, and reports that 42,000 immigrants were arrested on the borders of the EU in the first four months of the year, more than three times as many as in the same period the previous year.

“We assume that in the summer, very high numbers will be reached”, warned the Frontex deputy director, Gil Arias-Fernandez, in Brussels. He cited the conflict in Syria and the dire social conditions in many African countries.

In the first months of the year a total of 36,000 refugees arrived in southern Italy. The reception camps on Sicily are full to bursting, and some refugees are being temporarily housed in warehouses, where they are left to their own devices. The government has withdrawn the law making illegal immigration a crime, as the jails too are overloaded.

The Italian government is now demanding that other EU member states accept refugees. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi declared: “Europe cannot rescue states and banks while mothers and children are drowning.”

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano even suggested that many of the migrants who are recognized as refugees will not stay in Italy. “Europe does not help us to recover the dead, it should at least accept the living. Those who have a right of asylum, which Italy recognizes, can travel all over Europe wherever they want to go and Italy will not be a jail for political refugees.”

It has become routine for the European Union to express its “deep shock” at the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, as in this case by the responsible EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmström. However, she pushed the responsibility onto the EU member states “to now show concrete solidarity, in order to avoid the repeat of such tragedies.” Malmström also announced she would table the issue on the agenda of the next EU interior ministers meeting in June.

Meanwhile, Libya’s Interior Minister Salah Mazek has also threatened the EU with accelerating the wave of migration to southern Italy if his country does not receive support. “We can let thousands travel unhindered if Europe does not take responsibility”, he said.

But the appeal to distribute the refugees to all EU states would completely undermine the Dublin II Accord, under which the state in which refugees first make a claim for asylum must take responsibility for them.

It is no accident that the German interior minister has just tabled a draft law under which asylum seekers can be arrested at any time in Germany. This will likely accelerate deportations to countries of origin, as well as to other EU countries under the Dublin II agreement.

The deadly consequences posed by maintenance of a militarised outer-EU border for all EU states, including Italy, were exposed by a consortium of 10 European journalists utilizing the database, “The Migrants Files”.

Confirmed reports detail lethal asylum attempts, in which more than 23,000 have died on the external EU border since 2000. The responsibility for these mass deaths is borne by the European Union.

Since then, for example, the Greek government hermetically sealed off the land border to Turkey in the summer of 2012. As a result, over 230 refugees have died in the Aegean. A 3-metre high impenetrable fence has diverted the stream of refugees into the far more dangerous route by sea, where they are dependent on the goodwill of the Greek coast guard.

The refugee organisation ProAsyl reports that in January this year, a refugee ship off the coast of the uninhabited Greek island of Farmakonisi suffered motor damage. When the Greek coast guard attempted to push the boat back into Turkish waters, it capsized. Some refugees attempted to swim to the patrol boat, but they were pushed back into the sea. A total of 11 people drowned, including children.

Although the Greek state has cut wages and pensions, and the public health service has practically collapsed as a result of the austerity measures imposed by the EU and the International Monetary Fund, it continues to guard its frontier with Turkey against refugees, with more than 1,800 border guards, with the support of Frontex.

The Mediterranean area is surveilled with drones and satellites around the clock under the Eurosur System. This is not in order to rescue those in danger at sea, as Frontex deputy director Gil Arias Fernandez had to admit to the online magazine Euobserver. The satellite images were only provided to the border agencies days later, since they are only for observing the movement of refugees in order to prevent future attempts.

And the Italian navy operation “Mare Nostrum” does not serve to prevent refugee catastrophes or to save those whose ships capsize. Rather, the apprehended refugees are to be returned to North Africa as swiftly as possible. To this end, the first identification measures are taken on board the ships, with decisions taken as to who can and cannot make a claim to asylum. Nigerians are thrown onto the street and must leave Italy within seven days. Tunisians and Egyptians, however, are deported immediately.

Two Libyan officers are also present, who are responsible for contact with the Libyan authorities, in order to turn over refugees apprehended near the Libyan coast directly to Libyan units.

In Libya itself, some 70 EU police officers are deployed, training and supporting border guards. Libya receives financial aid within the framework of the Eubam Mission, and is involved in guarding its own borders against those seeking to flee abroad. This forward displacement of the anti-refugee measures is the ultimate goal of the European Union. The dirty work is to be done by the neighbouring states, while the EU states keep their hands clean.

But here, too, the number of victims is increasing. For example, last week near the Algerian border, 13 migrants from Niger were found who had nearly died of starvation and thirst. According to information from the newspaper Al-Watan, the group, which is said to have consisted mainly of women and children, numbered a further 33 people. And in October last year, the bodies of 92 refugees were found after their vehicle had broken down in the desert in North Niger. Most of them were women and children.

Giusi Nicolini, the mayor of Lampedusa, has demanded a “Mare Nostrum 2 on land and on the coast”. This would include an efficient reception system for refugees, and the provision of ships that can “return the refugees directly to the harbour of Tripoli or other African towns, and so put an end to the trafficking business”.

What is more likely, however, is that the EU will agree further measures to seal off its borders, extending border protection in cooperation with the indigenous police and secret service right into the Sahara, the Turkish-Iran border or the Urals.

The European Union is now home to about 500 million people. That its 28 member countries are unable and unwilling to absorb a few tens of thousands of refugees is an expression of its historical bankruptcy.

Wednesday 21 May 2014

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/05/21/refu-m21.html

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