Ukraine buries unidentified soldiers months after eastern battle

Ukraine buried on Friday 57 soldiers still unidentified up to a year after being killed in the eastern separatist conflict, highlighting the difficulties the country faces moving on from one of its deadliest military defeats.

Mournful chants drifted over the graves of the nameless soldiers, most of whom fell in the battle of Ilovaisk last August after Ukrainian forces found themselves encircled, outgunned, and vastly outnumbered by Russian-backed rebels.

Authorities have spent months trying to identify the bodies and find relatives, but without success.

"It's horrible to think that somewhere their parents are waiting for them, their children, brothers, sisters," said local resident Olga Bondarenko, who had come to pay her respects at the cemetery in the south-eastern region of Zaporizhzhya.

Hundreds of soldiers are believed to have been killed in the encounter, but official figures are much lower.

Government efforts to recover bodies were hampered by the fact they lay in separatist-held territory.

Afterwards an unwillingness from relatives to undergo DNA testing also held up the process, news agency Interfax Ukraine quoted regional military official Oleksander Beda as saying.

"Until the end they hope that their loved ones, who were missing in action, were alive and either captured or in hospital ... You can understand them - hope dies last of all," he was quoted as saying.

In October, a parliamentary report on Ilovaisk listed a series of military mistakes and concluded that "the causes of the ... tragedy are fundamental problems in the organization of the country's system of defense".

It said it was not able to establish the true number of casualties due to a lack of data from the Ministry of Defence and General Staff.

More than 6,500 soldiers, separatists and civilians have been killed since fighting between Ukrainian troops and rebels seeking independence from Kiev erupted in April 2014, according to United Nations estimates.

Violence has continued despite a ceasefire deal signed in February with both sides accusing the other of violations. Sixteen servicemen have been killed by shelling or landmine explosions since the start of August, while 29 were killed on the frontline in July.

"To think that this could happen to our country, to our boys," Bondarenko said, her voice choking with tears.

Clouds of red dust rose into the air as soldiers shoveled earth into the graves, each marked with a plain cross and a plaque inscribed with the words: "Unknown soldier."

Saturday 8 august 2015

http://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-buries-unidentified-soldiers-months-eastern-battle-153129095.html

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SS Eastland disaster: An unequaled disaster

July 24 marked the 100th anniversary of the death of the Eastland. The Eastland was, without question, the greatest disaster of all Great Lakes shipwrecks with anywhere from 800 to 1,100 casualties, although recent historians estimate approximately 844 deaths.

Source material for the tragedy of the Eastland is abundant. One cannot name any histories of the Great Lakes that do not mention the Eastland and do not recognize it as the greatest of tragedies on the Great Lakes.

For once in our accountings of Great Lakes shipwrecks, the weather, the waves or collisions were not responsible for the wreck of the Eastland.

In fact, according to Mark Bourrie’s “Many a Midnight Ship,” the seeds for the Eastland disaster were planted as she was under construction. This was a doomed ship before she saw any service. Subsequent attempts to improve the Eastland only contributed to her doomsday scenario.

The Eastland was built as a freight and passenger carrier. She was constructed at the Sidney Jenks shipyard and was launched in 1903. She was 265 feet long and had a breadth of 38 feet.

The Jenks shipyard, according to Bourrie, had very little experience building vessels that would carry passengers. That observation was also confirmed by Benjamin J. Shelak in “Shipwrecks of Lake Michigan,” who noted the four-deck passenger ship was the only one produced by this shipyard.

From the beginning the Eastland’s design flaws pointed to an eventual disaster. There were plenty of warnings. Ignored but significant were two very severe listing events in 1904 and in 1906.

The 1904 event involved a roll to starboard of approximately 20-25 degrees before the ship rolled back. 3,000 passengers were aboard and dozens complained to the newspapers and the ship owners. Both incidents resulted in mandates to reduce passenger loads.

The owners responded to the criticisms by taking out newspaper advertisements offering a reward of $5,000 to the person who could demonstrate the Eastland was unsafe. In so doing, the owners ignored the warnings of marine engineer William Wood who had worked on the Eastland and was aware of problems with the ship’s equilibrium.

Early in the day of July 24, 1915, all people could think about was the beautiful day on Lake Michigan and how fortunate they and their families would be to ride across the blue waters of Lake Michigan to the beaches near Michigan City, Indiana.

The Western Electric Co. had arranged an excursion for its employees aboard the Eastland. The company subsidy enabled their workers to purchase tickets for 75 cents.

Historical accounts, including Dwight Boyer’s “True Tales of the Great Lakes,” document numerous complaints by workers that they felt pressured by possible job loss if they did not purchase tickets. These complaints were probably well-founded, but it appears the vast majority of passengers were truly looking forward to a beautiful day with their families on a beautiful lake.

As the Eastland had her lines slipped and was under tow by a tug, she immediately began to list badly and then tipped over in the river. Hundreds were thrown from the decks to their deaths. Hundreds more were simply crushed on the river bottom by the big ship now lying on its side. Hundreds more drowned as they were trapped below the waterline.

Nothing could express the horror of the day’s events better than the many photographs found in Boyer’s book, of the faces of the rescuers and survivors as they struggled to find more bodies. The nightmarish events were accentuated by the bodies of little children, still in their Sunday clothes, being carried off to makeshift morgues.

The tipping over of the Eastland and the events leading up to the disaster suggested serious problems with metacentric height, essentially the ship’s center of gravity and the equilibrium between the distribution of weight onboard. In other words, on a flawed ship like the Eastland, the weight shift by passengers moving, in mass from one side of the ship to the other, might well be enough for the ship to lose equilibrium.

But let’s not blame the passengers. They were hardworking families from tight knit ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago. They were workers, looking forward to a beautiful day’s excursion with their families on Lake Michigan, a break from the toils and tedium of the workplace.

They were human beings who paid the ultimate price for the dishonesty, the greed, and the willful ignorance of the ship owners and their enablers, the corrupt bureaucrats.

That price amounted to the greatest loss of life in a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes, a loss that has never been approached by any subsequent shipwreck in the past 100 years.

Given the circumstances, there is every reason to believe the death toll of the Eastland will never be equaled again.

Saturday 8 August 2015

http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/story/opinion/columnists/2015/08/07/jim-hettinger-unequaled-disaster/31308323/

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Harda train accident: One more body found, toll rises to 30

One more body was recovered on Friday, taking the toll in twin-train tragedy near Harda station to 30. The dead, identified as Shobhnath Pasi, 55, was a native of Badka Dela village in Phoolpur tehsil of Uttar Pradesh's Allahabad district. Pasi, who was working in a powerloom in Mumbai, was travelling from Mumbai to Allahabad in Kamanyani Express's general bogie.

Shobhnath Pasi, 55, was a resident of Badka Dela village under Phoolpur tehsil of Uttar Pradesh's Allahabad district. Pasi was living in Mumbai and working in a powerloom factory. He was travelling from Mumbai to Allahabad in Kamanyani Express's general bogie when the accident took place.

"His son Rakesh Pasi, who came to Harda after hearing about the incident, identified him," Harda SP Prem Babu Sharma told TOI. "13 passengers are still missing and rescue operations are underway," he said.

Sources said the toll may cross 40. If they were alive, they could have been traced by now or would have approached family members.

Kin of 25 people have lodged missing complaints about their near and dear up to Friday. Of these, eight people were identified from the bodies sent to Bhopal and four were found alive in Harda, but the whereabouts of remaining 13 could not be traced so far.

District police have launched a 24x7 helpdesk at Harda railway station to provide information to kin of those missing.

On Friday, rescue operations by state disaster relief force, national disaster relief force and local administration continued. Officials said relief work would continue for next couple of days. Derailed bogies and debris are yet to be removed from the accident site.

Several passengers were trapped in two bogies of Janata Express perilously hanging while three wrecked compartments telescoped into the Kamayani Express. The accident took place near Mandla village under Khirkiya tehsil of Harda district.

Mumbai lad recounts harrowing experience at mortuary

Mumbai resident Ajay Patel's family members were taken out dead from the wreckage of Janata Express by rescue workers at Harda. Four bodies wrapped in sheets, tossed on the slush at the tragedy site for identification and then stuffed into an ambulance van to Bhopal, where it was shoved into a frigid morgue. Sixty hours later, Ajay, who is just out of high school, is struggling to get custody of the bodies for performing last rites. It was a traumatic journey from Kalyan railway station, where he first heard the tragic news to a roller-coaster ride to Harda ground zero and then a harrowing experience at the morgue at Hamidia Hospital, Bhopal.

Ajay only had a fleeting glimpse of his parent's decomposed bodies. He cringed as he pointed out to mortuary officials that they were his own. Now, he's still waiting to get custody of the bodies for funeral. With no coordination between police, doctors and railway officials, many like Ajay are getting trapped in red tape of babudom.

"I was waiting at Kalyan railway station to receive my parents, aunt and cousin. It was then that I heard about the accident. I dialled the helpline number and heard the shocking news. I did not know much about Harda or Bhopal. I and my uncle headed for Harda in a taxi as trains were diverted. We scoured photographs of the dead put up at notice board at Harda railway station and then reached Bhopal. I waited at BMHRC morgue for three hours and still didn't get the bodies. I spent sleepless night in the open at the hospital campus. In the morning, we were told, the bodies were taken to another hospital for autopsy," he said.

Since Friday morning, Ajay is waiting outside mortuary at Gandhi Medical College for the autopsy to end. "There's nobody to lend a helping hand. There's so much red tape even after a national tragedy," he said. His parents, Baliram, 47, Hari Bai, 44, aunt, Shashi, 35 and cousin Satyam, 11, died after the coach in which they were travelling sank into the swollen Machak river after two trains derailed on the bridge.

Ajay is eldest in the family and his two younger siblings, brother Vikas, 16 and sister Manju, 18, are in Kalyan, Mumbai, still unaware of what has happened.

The bodies were taken out of GMC Hospital after autopsy late afternoon and Ajay hired two hearses for railway station.

Ajay's is not the only sordid tale. Families of victims are having a tough time dealing with administration as officials of Railways and district administration are not in sync. Arman Shah, who lost his elder brother, Ramzan Shah, 23, had to also struggle to get the autopsy done and take the body home. Two railway officials, including ticket examiners, were also present at the hospital on Friday. "What we can do? Police and doctors do not listen to us. Railway brass should take note of the situation," they said.

Kamayani Express, headed for Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh from Mumbai, derailed near Harda town, 160 km south of Bhopal, shortly before midnight. The Janata Express, en route to Mumbai from Patna, too derailed at the same spot minutes later. A total of 30 bodies have been recovered so far, besides, at least 13 passengers are still missing.

Saturday 8 August 2015

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/One-more-body-found-toll-30/articleshow/48399401.cms

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/60-hrs-after-tragedy-Mumbai-lad-recounts-harrowing-experience-at-morturary/articleshow/48399415.cms

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Nepal earthquake: 5 foreign nationals identified through DNA test

Nepal Police has confirmed the death of five foreigners reported missing in the Great Earthquake based on DNA verification.

The Central Police Forensic Science Laboratory (CPFSL) had conducted DNA profiling of the severed body parts recovered from various parts of the country and cross-matched the details with the DNA reports of the missing foreigners sent by Interpol.

Nepal Police had received DNA reports of 11 foreigners who were reported missing in Nepal by their families in the wake of the April 25 earthquake. The DNA reports that were sent from France, Canada and Spain are being used to match the DNA profiling conducted by the police laboratory of the remains.

Among the identified are three French, a Canadian and a Spanish national.

Police said the DNA profiling report sent to them from concerned nations was done on the basis of items used by these nationals before their departure to Nepal. DNA was extracted from a toothbrush of one of the foreign nationals, while blood stain in the razor was used for another.

The CPFSL conducts DNA profiling through blood, bone and hair with its root, among others. In case of bone, it is drilled and crushed into powdered form. Also, a process known as de-calcification is conducted to remove the calcium content in the bone which is then processed in a machine called the automated express to isolate the DNA.

“Following the isolation, the quantity of extracted DNA is studied which after some other complex processes will eventually lead to genotyping also known as DNA profiling,” said Deputy Superintendent of Police Rakesh Singh. “We had to rely on Indian laboratories for such tests. But since a year, we have been able to conduct the profiling in police laboratory itself. And it has been used extensively after the earthquake to help identify the deceased.”

Similarly, CPFSL were also able to identify additional three dead bodies of foreigners through their fingerprints. The identified people are from Germany, Spain and Britain. In case of the British national, the authorities there were able to produce the fingerprint through his used tea-cup that had remained unattended ever since he left for Nepal. The fingerprint was used to match with the analysis conducted at the police laboratory.

Senior Superintendent of Police Janak Singh, chief of CPFSL said at present DNA and fingerprint analysis of over 40 appendages are underway that will help in identifying the details of the people who died in the earthquake.

Friday 7 August 2015

http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2015/08/06/news/5-missing-identified-through-dna-test/279267.html

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Remains in Matterhorn Identified as 2 Japanese Missing Since 1970

Local police in Valais, Switzerland, said that remains found at the foot of the Matterhorn in 2014 have been identified as two Japanese climbers who had been missing for 45 years.

According to a police press release, the bodies were discovered in September 2014 at an altitude of about 2,800 meters. Forensic scientists had been conducting DNA testing and were able to identify the remains as two Japanese missing since Aug. 18, 1970. Searches at the time hadn’t located the two.

The Japanese foreign ministry confirmed that the bodies were the remains of Masayuki Kobayashi and Michio Oikawa, who were 21 and 22 years old when they went missing, respectively.

Local police said they have contacted the Japanese consulate in Geneva and have been in touch with family members of the two climbers in Japan.

The police said they have kept a record of those missing at the mountain since 1925. Bodies of some alpinists have been discovered as higher temperatures cause glaciers to retreat.

Friday 7 August 2015

http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2015/08/07/remains-in-matterhorn-identified-as-2-japanese-missing-since-1970/

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Afghan army helicopter crashes, killing all 17 aboard

An Afghan military helicopter crashed, killing all 17 people on board on Thursday, officials said, in a blow for a fledgling air force whose resources have been stretched since the withdrawal of most international troops last year.

The Taliban, mounting a growing insurgency, said it shot down the helicopter in the southern province of Zabul, but a government official blamed a technical failure and said there had been no gunfire.

Twelve soldiers and five crew died, said Gul Islam Seyal, a government spokesman in Zabul, on the same day as two suicide attacks blamed on the militant group. Thousands have been killed and wounded since the start of the year.

"There were two helicopters ... One of them had a technical problem and contacted the other one and informed the pilot of an emergency landing. As soon as it landed, it caught fire," Seyal said.

Provincial police chief Mirwais Noorzai said the cause of the helicopter crash was not yet known and was under investigation. The Defense Ministry said the crash appeared to have been caused by a technical problem, without elaborating.

Afzal Aman, the Defense Ministry's chief of operations, described it as "the worst calamity to hit the air force." He confirmed the casualty figure, and said the dead included a unit commander and 11 soldiers, as well as the crew.

Afghanistan's military has about 150 aircraft and 390 pilots, just a fraction of the air power that NATO used to fly support, evacuation and supply sorties before last year's drawdown.

The bulk of the Afghan fleet is made up of aging Mi-17 transport aircraft, but it was not immediately clear what type of helicopter was involved in the crash.

Friday 7 August 2015

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/06/us-afghanistan-helicopter-idUSKCN0QB0QF20150806

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Cypriot officials say they may have found Greek aircraft shot down in 1974

Cypriot officials searching for the remains of a Greek military plane that crashed 41 years ago believe they may have discovered the aircraft buried near a war memorial on the outskirts of Nicosia.

The discovery of shards of metal has raised hopes that the bodies of the 19 soldiers still believed to be inside the plane’s incinerated fuselage could be recovered and returned to their families.

The Nord Noratlas, a Greek military transport aircraft, was brought down by friendly fire in the opening days of Turkey’s invasion of the island in 1974, with just one survivor among the 32 people on board. Twelve bodies were collected and identified from the crash site, but 19 soldiers remain unaccounted for.

Fotis Fotiou, the humanitarian affairs commissioner for Cyprus, said: “Initial findings are positive that the aircraft is here. My message to the relatives is that we will do whatever it takes to find the remains of their loved ones so they can be buried according to our Orthodox Christian customs and traditions, as well as with all appropriate honours.”

Fotiou said the second, more intensive phase of the dig will begin next week, with the assistance of experts from countries including Canada, Australia and the Netherlands, who specialise in military-related excavations.

He said possible explosives and ammunition may still be inside the aircraft’s fuselage, making the recovery work particularly risky.

Xenophon Kallis, an official at the Cyprus foreign ministry, said shards of aluminium and other metal found during the initial phase of the operation has boosted confidence that the aircraft is there.

The Noratlas crashed as it was coming in to land at Nicosia airport in the early hours of 22 July 1974.

The plane went down under withering volleys of friendly fire from the airport’s Greek Cypriot defenders, who were fearful of an imminent landing by invading Turkish forces to take the strategically important area.

It was one of 13 aircraft that arrived from Greece to help defend against the invasion, triggered when supporters of Cyprus uniting with Greece mounted a short-lived coup. The island has since been separated into a breakaway Turkish Cypriot north and an internationally recognised Greek Cypriot south.

Accounts from the time suggest word of the plane’s arrival reached the airport’s defenders too late. Fire from anti-aircraft batteries and other small arms tore through the Noratlas, which burst into flames and crashed several hundred metres from the now defunct airport that straddles a UN-controlled buffer zone.

The remains of 12 soldiers scattered around the crash site, which were collected and buried at a Nicosia cemetery, have been identified through DNA analysis.

But in two separate instances, families mistakenly received remains they should not have. The mistake was rectified after remains found later at the Nicosia cemetery were positively identified and returned.

Friday 8 August 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/06/cyprus-greek-military-plane-shot-down-1974-discovery-nicosia

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Pakistan military helicopter crashes in northwest; 11 killed

A Pakistani military helicopter crashed in a mountainous region in the country's restive northwest on Thursday, killing at least 11 people on board, police said.

The helicopter, which serves as a medical assistance aircraft, was on the way to the northern town of Gilgit when it went down near the district of Mansehra in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said local police official Fida Khan.

"Rescuers have so far retrieved 11 bodies from the wreckage," he said, adding that the cause of the crash was unclear and that an investigation was underway.

However, a senior army officer told The Associated Press that the helicopter was carrying 12 people- including military doctors, paramedics and crew members - and was flying to Gilgit to evacuate a critically ill soldier when it went down, apparently because of bad weather.

The officer said the helicopter had taken off from Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital, Islamabad. It crashed near Mansehra, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) northeast of the city of Peshawar. The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to reporters, had no other details and said the army had dispatched troops to the site of the crash.

The crash came months after another army helicopter crashed in the northern town of Naltar, killing four foreigners - ambassadors to Islamabad from the Philippines and Norway, as well as the wives of the ambassadors from Malaysia and Indonesia. Three crew members from the army were also killed at the time.

It took rescue workers at least two hours to reach the crash site due to the difficult mountainous terrain, Mushtaq Ghani, information minister of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told reporters.

Earlier in the day, another helicopter of the Pakistan Air Force had crashed in the tourist Chitral Valley near the Afghanistan border, which left several people injured. The PAF helicopter was also engaged in rescue operations in flood-hit areas.

On May 8, the ambassadors of Norway and the Philippines were among seven people killed in a helicopter crash in the northern Gilgit district's Niltar valley, a popular skiing destination near the border with China.

Pakistan's army has been fighting local and foreign militants in the country's northwestern tribal regions bordering Afghanistan for nearly a decade. The military launched a major offensive in the North Waziristan tribal region last year and claims it has cleared 90 percent of the region of militants.

North Waziristan was considered to be the headquarters of the Pakistani Taliban until June 2014, when the army launched the long-awaited operation there.

Friday 7 August 2015

http://www.newswest9.com/story/29726028/pakistan-military-helicopter-crashes-in-northwest-11-killed

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Madhya Pradesh train accident: Toll may cross 50 as many feared washed away

The death toll in Tuesday’s train derailments in Madhya Pradesh reached 34 but it could cross 50 as rescuers and relatives feared flash floods that caused the fatal accidents washed away many passengers on board the two packed trains.

The Kamayani Express on its way to Varanasi from Mumbai derailed shortly before midnight on Tuesday near Harda town while the Janata Express travelling in the opposite direction to Mumbai from Patna slid off the tracks soon after. The trains derailed after flash floods set off by torrential rains weakened tracks over the swollen Kala Machak river.

Officials said three more bodies — including two women — were fished out from Kala Machak on Thursday but the toll could be much higher as more than a dozen families reached Harda and nearby towns looking for missing relatives who were travelling in the two trains.

These families reported 17 missing passengers but when they were shown photos of a dozen unidentified bodies, the identity of only two could be ascertained.

“This indicates 15 missing people might add to the list of 31 declared dead so far,” an official said.

The administration directed officials to look for bodies that might have washed away 15-20km downstream after the National Disaster Response Force team stopped their rescue efforts on Thursday.

Family members recounted their frustration after repeated rounds of hospitals, police stations and Harda railway station for news about their missing loved ones.

Thursday 6 August 2015

http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/mp-train-accident-toll-may-cross-50-as-many-feared-washed-away/article1-1377251.aspx

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More than 200 feared dead in sinking of migrant boat in Mediterranean

Hopes faded of finding more survivors on Thursday from a shipwreck in which 200 migrants are feared drowned, as rescue ships were called to the aid of more migrant boats in the same area of the Mediterranean.

"We are witnessing a genocide caused by European selfishness," said Palermo mayor Leoluca Orlando as the Irish navy ship LE Niamh docked in the port carrying some 370 survivors of Wednesday's disaster and 25 corpses, including three children.

Orlando, speaking on Italian television as hearses arrived to take the bodies away, called on European leaders to do more to prevent such disasters and to allow more refugees to re-settle in their countries.

A police official told reporters a distraught woman from the boat had been searching for her three children who had gone missing in the crossing. She was taken to view bodies and came out weeping, said the officer, though it was not clear whether she had seen her family.

Police said they had detained five men suspected of having piloted the boat that overturned on Wednesday and of having had a role in trafficking the migrants.

Vessels from the Italian and Irish navies and humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) saved about 400 people from the fishing boat, thought to have been carrying up to 600 people, mostly Syrians fleeing their country's civil war.

Cmdr Filippo Marini of the Italian coast guard said survivors had indicated that between 400 and 600 people were on board the boat when it capsized.

Melissa Fleming, a UN refugee agency (UNHCR) spokeswoman, said about 100 people are thought to have been travelling in the boat's hull at the time, adding: "The boat capsized very fast".

They found no more survivors after scouring the waters overnight. Italian vessels continued to search the area on Thursday, a coastguard spokesman said.

Seas were very calm on Thursday, perfect conditions to attempt the sea crossing, said a Reuters photographer aboard the privately funded Phoenix, a vessel run by MSF and the Migrant Offshore Aid Station.

The Phoenix was responding to a distress call for a boat carrying about 500 people, he said. The coastguard picked up 381 on Thursday morning, while an Italy navy ship took 101 from a large rubber boat, and the MSF vessel Argos rescued 87, according to their Twitter accounts.

Wednesday's tragedy occurred when the boat flipped over as the LE Niamh approached, probably because desperate passengers surged to one side as they spotted the ship.

"What happened here was because the boat was so overloaded, and the conditions were such that the boat started taking on water and it listed to one side, capsized and sank, all in the space of two minutes," Irish Defence Minister Simon Coveney said on Irish state radio RTE on Thursday.

The Irish ship is part of the European Union Triton mission, which was expanded after up to 800 migrants drowned in a shipwreck in April.

DEADLY BORDER AREA

The Mediterranean Sea is the world's most deadly border area for migrants. More than 2,000 migrants and refugees have died so far this year trying to reach Europe by boat, compared with 3,279 during the whole of last year, the International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday.

People-smugglers, mostly based in Libya and charging thousands of dollars for passage, have sent more than 90,000 migrants by sea to Italy so far this year, the UN refugee agency says. Italy took in 170,000 in 2014.

This summer's mass arrivals in both Italy and Greece show the crisis is worsening. Immigrants fleeing violence and poverty at home continue to pour in from Africa and the Middle East.

Many of the newcomers look to move swiftly to wealthier northern Europe, including to Britain from Calais, France.

In April, a 20-metre (66-foot) vessel capsized as it approached a merchant ship that had come to its assistance, and up to 900 people were killed. It was the deadliest shipwreck in the Mediterranean for decades and a symbol of Europe's long-running migrant crisis.

Thursday 6 August 2015

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/08/06/uk-europe-migrants-italy-idUKKCN0QB0SN20150806

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20 more bodies recovered from Langtang landslide site

Twenty more bodies have been recovered from Langtang in Rasuwa district three months after the Great Earthquake on April 25. The bodies, retrieved from the landslide debris, have badly decomposed are waiting to be airlifted to Kathmandu for DNA testing, the Home Ministry said on Tuesday.

Chief District Officer (CDO) of Rasuwa Shiva Ram Gelal said the bodies could not be transported to the Forensic Unit of the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital on Tuesday due to (TUTH) as the helicopter could not fly in due to adverse weather conditions.

Locals of the Langtang VDC informed the authorities after they discovered the bodies, according to police. Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Prabin Pokhrel of the district said the locals have claimed that the bodies were that of their family and relatives.

More than 100 complaints of missing people had been lodged in the wake of the massive earthquake that devastated Rasuwa district, a major tourist destination. Out of them, 21 are locals, 61 are not native of the district, while 22 are foreigners.

A Home Ministry record shows 660 people were killed by the April 25 quake in Rasuwa district. A total of 8,898 people lost their lives in the earthquake across the country.

The bodies or other human remains of the earthquake victims that could not be identified have been undergoing DNA testing at the Central Police Forensic Science Laboratory (CPFSL) of Nepal Police.

A total of 53 samples have been tested for a DNA match, police said. People can apply for a DNA test to identity the body or mortal remains of their kin by depositing their blood sample at the district police office. The samples will be then forwarded to the CPFSL where they are put through test for a DNA match.

Of the total 12 blood samples of foreigners sent for such tests, the CPFSL has so far identified body parts of five foreigners. No blood samples have been collected from Nepali people, police said.

Samples are collected and processed in bulk for DNA tests because of the cost factor, according to DSP Singh. “We collect at least 50 samples before we put them through the test. The test results will arrive after a month to three months,” he said.

Wednesday 5 August 2015

http://www.ekantipur.com/2015/08/05/top-story/20-more-bodies-of-quake-victims-recovered-in-langtang/408945.html

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Naupada building collapse kills 12, injures 7

Around 2.30am on Tuesday, while residents of Krishna Niwas were asleep, the 50-year-old building in Naupada collapsed, killing 12 and injuring seven.

An earth-shattering thud awoke everyone in the building as well as vicinity, with locals rushing to the spot and informing local corporator Sanjay Waghole. He alerted the fire brigade and Thane Municipal Corporation's (TMC) disaster management cell. A team of 50 National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) officials from Andheri reached the spot around 4.15am and began rescue operations.

With NDRF's help, fire brigade officials and locals completed the rescue work within eight hours. The injured were taken to Thane civil hospital.

"We used various equipment, including sniffer dogs, who helped us locate victims stuck in the rubble. We also used were air-lifting bags and victim location camera," said Sachidanand Gawde, deputy commander-in-chief, NDRF.

"It was the moral support from locals, some of whom helped us identify where the victims could have been stuck. Our sniffer dogs identified such locations efficiently."

Even before the rescue teams arrived, locals had managed to rescue an 80-year-old, who stayed on the third floor and was recognised by the locals. Nene has suffered head injuries and is recuperating at the hospital.

Interestingly, the three-storey building, located in the heart of the city, was due for redevelopment and, hence, the TMC had not served any evacuation notice to the residents, who were staying here on Pagdi system. This is the second incident of building collapse in a week, the first being the Thakurli collapse in Dombivli on July 28, which killed nine and injured 11.

Sanjay More, mayor (TMC), said, "The building was constructed in 1962. It was due for redevelopment and appropriate steps were taken by owner Hemant Patil. However, due to family disputes of ownership, the matter was sub judice and, hence, no notice was issued to this building. Many residents were saved as the building tilted left and collapsed. Thus, no other building in the vicinity was damaged."

Minister of state for urban development Ranjit Patil, who visited the site, said, "Buildings that have completed more than 30 years should get a structural audit done. All civic bodies need to be alert and take appropriate measures."

Wednesday 5 August 2015

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-naupada-building-collapse-kills-12-injures-7-2111163

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Lake Victoria accident: At least 30 feared dead after boat capsizes near Remba Island, Kenya

At least 30 people are feared dead after a boat carrying 200 passengers capsized in Lake Victoria according to Citizen TV Kenya, a local television network. The accident reportedly occurred early Wednesday.

Three bodies, of which two are children, have been recovered so far, local media reported. However, local fishermen at Nyandiwa Beach said that nine people were killed, Daily Nation newspaper reported. The cause of the accident is not clear, however, some local media reports said two boats collided resulting in the accident.

Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake and its waters spread across Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. About 5,000 fishermen die each year due to storms on Lake Victoria, according to a report last month in New Vision, a Ugandan daily, citing a survey by Makerere University School of Public Health in Kampala, Uganda.

The Kenya Red Cross Society tweeted saying that it has sent a rescue team to Lake Victoria where a boat carrying 200 passengers capsized early Wednesday.

The accident happened near Remba, a tiny island in the middle of Lake Victoria, is known as “Slum Island”.

A few thousand people, mainly fishermen, make their home on this busy outpost on the border between Uganda and Kenya. One-room shacks are the norm here, and the fishermen almost literally live on top of each other: they share shacks, with one group sleeping in the day while the other fishes, and then they swap at night.

Wednesday 5 August 2015

http://news.yahoo.com/least-2-dead-kenya-boat-200-people-capsizes-060850733.html

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More than 2,000 migrant deaths in Mediterranean in 2015

More than 2,000 people have died so far this year trying to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe, the International Organisation for Migration said on Tuesday, making it the world's most dangerous migrant route.

"Unfortunately, we have now reached a milestone whereby over 2,000 migrants and refugees have died as of this past weekend," IOM spokesman Itayi Virri told reporters in Geneva.

The organisation said around 188,000 people had been rescued so far this year trying to cross the Mediterranean, and warned the 200,000-mark could be crossed by the end of the week.

IOM said the latest toll confirms "this route as the deadliest for migrants in search of a better life," and warned the situation was worsening.

During the same period last year, 1,607 migrants had perished trying to make the journey, with 3,279 dying in all of 2014.

Nearly all of the people flooding across the Mediterranean so far this year, often in rickety boats and at the mercy of human traffickers, have landed in Italy (97,000) and Greece (90,500), the IOM said.

Virri said the so-called central Mediterranean route had proved by far the deadliest, with just over 1,930 people dying trying to cross from Libya to Italy so far this year, while only about 60 had died trying to reach Greece.

The IOM said that traffickers taking people to Italy tended to use more unseaworthy vessels, leading to the higher death toll.

While lamenting the tragic milestone of more than 2,000 deaths, Mr Virri pointed out that increased European Union efforts since April to rescue migrants at sea meant "a lot of people have been saved who otherwise would have lost their lives."

Nineteen people had lost their lives in the Channel of Sicily last week alone, with the bodies of 14 migrants brought to the Sicilian port of Messina on July 29. They had been travelling with 456 others who were rescued.

And on Monday, 550 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean over the weekend arrived in Sicily aboard a ship operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which also carried the bodies of five people who died at sea.

The migrants who were brought to safety in Palermo had been travelling on several different boats and were rescued over the weekend, the aid group said.

The victims, four women and one man, were found dead on a boat that was rescued on Saturday with 112 people on board. They died, according to initial tests, as a result of dehydration.

Shocked survivors said their rickety boat had only left Libya's shores for Italy 13 hours before they were rescued. In that short time, five of the children on board lost a parent.

Wednesday 5 August 2015

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11782584/More-than-2000-migrant-deaths-in-Mediterranean-in-2015-says-monitoring-group.html

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Death toll rises to 29 as Kamayani, Janata Express trains derail in Madhya Pradesh

At least 29 people, including 11 women and 5 children, have been killed after the Kamayani Express from Mumbai to Varanasi and the Mumbai-Jabalpur Janata Express derailed near Kudawa railway station, about 30 kilometres from Harda district in south western Madhya Pradesh, late on Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, according to PTI, has said that 12 people have been killed and 25 others injured in the accident.

Those killed include nine men, eight women and five children. Two of them reportedly died after being electrocuted during the rescue effort in the twin tragedy.

Both Mumbai-Varanasi Kamayani Express and Jabalpur-Mumbai Janata Express, got derailed while crossing a bridge on Machak River, near Khirkiya and Harda station, about 160 kms from Bhopal.

Kamayani Express was the first to get derailed at around 11:30 pm and Janata Express met with the accident just a few minutes later.

Railway authorities said the sudden flow of water on the tracks caused the derailment.

"We think tracks were breached because of the flow of excessive water," said an officer.

Meanwhile a section has been closed for any train movement. The accident relief train has reached the spot and several passengers have been brought to a nearby station, Sinha added.

More than 300 people have been rescued after the two trains derailed while crossing a swollen Machak river, said officials. According to officials, six coaches of Kamayani Express and three coaches plus the engine of Janata Express were derailed late last night as the base material on the tracks got washed away. “The mishap took place around 11.30 PM on Tuesday as base material of the tracks got washed away in heavy rains.”

Harda district collector Rajnish Srivastava said that incident took place near Khirkiya and Harda station on Machak River in which seven coaches of Kamayani Express and three coaches with the engine of Janata Express got derailed.

"It seems that base material on the tracks got washed away following heavy rains when the two trains coming from opposite directions on the Up and Down tracks met with the accident almost simultaneously," he said.

Wednesday 5 August 2015

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/kamayani-express-janata-express-derail-in-madhya-pradesh-many-feared-killed/

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Twin-train-derailment-death-toll-hits-27-in-Madhya-Pradesh/articleshow/48354995.cms

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In Poland, communist-era graves overlay victims of the state

Fearing the power of their patriotism, Poland's communist leaders killed the nation's World War II heroes and anti-communist activists and dumped their bodies secretly in mass graves, hoping they would be forgotten. They were topped with new graves.

But now, a history institute is restoring the memory of the slain heroes and arranging proper burials. In order to get to the hidden remains, it is asking to move 194 communist-era graves — including one of a judge who contributed to the death sentence for a man likely buried just beneath him.

The move is part of efforts taken by democratic Poland after 1989 to recognize war heroes and anti-communist activists who were persecuted, killed and deliberately erased from records under four decades of communism imposed after the war.

A motion to have the graves moved within Warsaw's military Powazki cemetery, at the expense of the state, has been filed with the provincial governor, who will negotiate with families, Institute of National Remembrance spokesman Andrzej Arseniuk told The Associated Press on Monday.

He said that the primary concern is for the relatives of the slain heroes who are waiting to have them identified and properly buried.

"It is the duty of the Polish state toward these national heroes who were murdered, secretly buried and destined by the communists for oblivion, to give them back their names and proper burial sites where they could be honored," Arseniuk said.

The institute is searching for the remains of about 100 independence heroes, from among several hundred killed in a Warsaw prison and then dumped there between 1945 and 1956.

Across Poland, thousands of war-time resistance heroes who later opposed communism were tortured, killed, and secretly buried. A few of their persecutors were handed prison terms under democracy.

Remains of about 120 victims — entangled skeletons and shattered skulls — were discovered in 2012-2013 under a lawn in the Powazki cemetery. About 40 have been identified using relatives' DNA. Officials realized that more remains could be reached only by moving the new graves on top.

Among those missing are Capt. Witold Pilecki, who volunteered to be an Auschwitz inmate and smuggled out reports of atrocities there before fleeing, and Gen. August Fieldorf, deputy commander of Poland's war-time resistance Home Army.

Among the graves of various communist-era military figures, dating to the 1980s, is that of Lt. Col. Roman Kryze, a judge who contributed to Pilecki's 1948 death sentence.

Tuesday 4 August 2015

http://news.yahoo.com/poland-seeks-move-graves-reach-remains-wwii-heroes-104617339.html

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Manikaran mishap: One more body recovered, yet to be identified

A male body was today spotted by villagers near Bajaura in Kullu district. Search teams retrieved the body from the Beas river and sent it to the government hospital.

A 52-seater bus with 69 pilgrims on board from Mansa, Barnala and Bhatinda districts of Punjab plunged into the swollen Parbati river near Sarsari village on the Bhuntar-Manikaran road in Kullu district on July 23. Eight persons died on the spot, while bodies of four pilgrims were later recovered from the river and the Larji Dam. However, 34 pilgrims are still missing. At least 23 persons were injured in the mishap.

Rajinder Singh Gill, member of the Kullu Kar Seva, said the relatives of the missing pilgrims camping here could not identify the body. However, photos bear resemblance to one Balwant Singh, son of Lal Singh of Jagaramtirath village in Talwandi tehsil of Punjab. He said relatives of the missing had been called for identification of the victim.

Meanwhile, Talwinder Singh, tehsildar, Barnala, consoled the relatives of Komalpreet Kaur, whose body was today sent to her native place. He assured them all support from the Punjab government.

Kullu Deputy Commissioner Rakesh Kanwar said the administration would rework the strategy tomorrow as exhaustive search and survey of the entire stretch from Sarsari up to Larji Dam undertaken at the potential spots to find the missing persons by the Navy had not yielded much result.

He said due to strong river water current, the equipment of the Navy could not trace the wreckage. Cold waters prevented divers to stay under the water for longer duration.

He said the search for the missing persons from the accident spot up to the Largi Dam along the Parbati and the Beas rivers would continue till the last week of September.

A 12-member Indian Navy team headed by Commander Tilak Thakur had yesterday started search operation with Sonar imaging system, but the operation was hampered due to muddy and turbulent water of the river.

Nearly 160 personnel of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Shastra Seema Bal (SSB), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Home Guards and state police have been pressed into the search operation.

Tuesday 4 August 2015

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/himachal/manikaran-mishap-one-more-body-recovered-yet-to-be-identified/115088.html

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One year of PINAK 6 capsize: No luck for the families of missing victims

One year ago, 21 unnamed dead bodies were buried at a local graveyard in Shibchar of Madaripur.

All of them died in one of the deadliest ever maritime mishaps on August 4 last year, when heavily loaded ferry Pinak 6 capsized in Padma River killing over a hundred passengers.

Rescuers retrieved 49 dead bodies at the time. Official count shows that 61 people are still missing from that accident, although many more families have claimed to have lost members.

The authorities were supposed to find out the identities of the bodies buried at that graveyard through DNA tests. But that has never happened.

They collected DNA samples from some families but most of them have been left out. It has been a year and the DNA test results have still not come.

The caretaker of that graveyard said that neither have anybody come there looking for the dead bodies, nor have anyone come to collect DNA samples since they were buried here one year ago.

As a result, these families – mostly from the low-income group – have not been able to get the cash compensation that the administration had announced after the accident.

Only those families who could identify or show proof that their members were among those deceased, got the money.

Suraton Nesa, a widow from the Sannashichar village in Shibchar, lost four members of her family – son, daughter, son-in-law and grandson – in that accident.

But since none of their bodies have been found, she failed to avail compensation. She does not even know if any of them are lying in that graveyard.

“We were already poor. Moreover, I had to spend most of my savings searching for the dead bodies after the accident. My son was the only bread-earner. I have been living from hand to mouth since. I have not got any compensation from the government because none of their dead bodies have been found,” Suraton said.

When contacted, Kamal Uddin Biswas, deputy commissioner of Madaripur district, said: “Except for one, each of the victim families were given Tk1.05 lakh as compensation. Any other victim families can apply for compensation by producing appropriate proof that they have missing members.”

Siblings Heera and Swarna and their cousin Lucky – all killed in that capsize – belongs to the family that did not accept compensation.

Nurul Haque, father of the siblings, said: “My daughter Heera was still alive when she was rescued and brought to the Mawa terminal. But she died before we took her to the government hospital in Munshiganj. If we could give her primary treatment at the Mawa terminal, we could have saved her life.

“This [Mawa] is such an important ferry terminal. But there are no first aid facilities here,” he said.

After the accident last year, Jahangir Bhuiya, inspector of the Mawa terminal, filed a case against Pinak 6 owner Abu Bakkar Siddique and five workers of the ferry. On August 14, ten days after the capsize, Siddique got arrested but there have not been much progress in that case since.

The ferry itself was never found. The Bangladesh Internal Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) tried with state-of-the-art sonar equipment but in vain.

Locals said that there was strong current in the river when the accident took place and this might have taken the ferry a long way downstream where it might now be resting on the river under a thick cover of sand.

The last time he spoke on the incident, Water Transport Minister Shajahan Khan said their priority after the accident was to hand the dead bodies over to their families; that was why they gave up on the operation to retrieve the ferry.

Tuesday 4 August 2015

http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2015/aug/04/no-luck-families-missing-victims

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20 bodies recovered from Langtang in Northern Nepal

At least 39 foreigners are still missing even as the bodies of 20 people who died in the devastating earthquake that hit Nepal in April were recovered from the northeastern region of Langtang, Nepal’s Interior Ministry said on Monday.

“The bodies are not in condition to be identified; all we can say right now is that we have recovered 20 bodies that were swept away after the earthquake,” ministry spokesperson Laxmi Prasad Dhakal told EFE, adding that the bodies were recovered “a couple of days ago.”

Dhakal said three bodies have already been sent to Kathmandu and the other 17 will reach on Tuesday for DNA testing.

Around 200 people, at least 100 of them foreigners, were buried in an avalanche of rocks, snow and mud that followed the earthquake on April 25.

A total of 159 people, 39 of them foreigners, who were at the Everest base camp and Langtang, are still missing.

Most of the missing foreigners are from the United States, Belgium, Canada, France and China, besides four Spaniards, who went missing in Langtang.

Shiva Ram Gelal, head of Rasua district, where Langtang is located, told EFE residents of the area have claimed the bodies are those of their relatives.

“We have decided to send them to Kathmandu for DNA testing so that we can verify their identity,” Gelal said.

Police spokesperson Kamal Singh Bam told EFE they are taking the help of social networking sites to locate the missing people.

“Some foreigners returned home by themselves and contacted us through social networks, so we are using these platforms to find more information,” Bam said.

According to official figures, the earthquake in April and its aftershocks, two of them measuring over 7.0 on the Richter scale, left 8,898 people dead and 22,309 injured.

Moreover, 602,257 houses and buildings were completely destroyed and another 285,099 suffered damages.

Monday 3 August 2015

http://laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2393658&CategoryId=12395

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Italy coast guard rescues 1,800 sea migrants, five found dead

Italy's coast guard said about 1,800 migrants were rescued from seven overcrowded vessels on Saturday, while five corpses were found on a large rubber boat carrying 212 others.

The dead bodies were found on board at the time of the rescue, a coast guard spokeswoman said on Sunday. The cause of death was not yet known, she said.

The Mediterranean has become the world's most deadly barrier for migrants and refugees, with 3,500 thought to have died at sea last year and almost 2,000 so far this year. Many are fleeing poverty and violence in the Middle East and Africa.

While there was no breakdown by nationality of those rescued on Saturday, about a quarter of arrivals this year have come from Eritrea, followed by Nigerians, Somalis, Sudanese and Syrians, according to the UN refugee agency.

Italy has had about 90,000 sea migrant arrivals so far this year, after receiving 170,000 in 2014, the agency says. Many of the newcomers look to move swiftly to wealthier northern Europe, including to England from Calais, France.

Nightly attempts by large groups of the estimated 5,000 migrants in Calais to force their way through the rail tunnel linking France and Britain have provoked public anger and severely disrupted the flow of goods between the two countries.

Sunday 2 August 2015

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/02/us-europe-migrants-italy-idUSKCN0Q70H520150802

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Where are the bodies buried in Colombia?

When members of Colombia’s Crime Scene Investigators (CTI) removed a section of topsoil indicated to them by a demobilized paramilitary member as being the site of a mass grave, they were expecting to unearth skulls, bones and fragments of clothing. Instead what they came face to face with were multiple round holes of medium depths.

“What happened here? Did you bury them standing up?” asked one CTI officer.

Far from it. The bodies of the deceased had been hacked into pieces and placed in tall milk urns and doused in acid. Once the human contents had dissolved and become liquid, the urns were then disinterred and their contents poured into the nearby Magdalena River. No trace no foul and another reminder of how far Colombia has yet to go to reconcile an uncompromising and bloody past. In this particular case, the number of people to have been killed in this fashion near to the colonial town of Guaduas, barely 77 miles northwest from the capital city of Bogota, is based on hazy recollections gathered from former combatants in Colombia’s conflict looking to reduce their sentences through an admission of guilt in participation in such heinous events. Sadly, these tales are the norm rather than unique.

That was in 2010 and as the Colombian government’s negotiating team grapples with members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC guerrillas) in on-going peace dialogues in Havana, Cuba in an attempt to bring stability to much of the country, there is still the issue of thousands of missing people, many forcibly disappeared, resulting from more than 50 years of conflict. So, exactly how many people have disappeared in Colombia’s long-running conflict and where have they been disposed of? While the answer to this question in unknown, human rights groups estimate there to be 4,649 common graves across the country.

Through tearful eyes Margarita Restrepo shares with reporters that not a day passes when she doesn’t think of her daughter Carol who disappeared in Medellin in October 2002. 13 years is a long time and Margarita is just one of a group of family members here on the location of a former landfill known as La Escombrera at the westernmost edge of the city and above the infamous Comuna 13 barrio. There has been a ceremony of remembrance and on Monday July 27 authorities began an excavation which will reportedly take five months, in the hope of finding and identifying as many as 100 bodies expected to have been buried here between 1999 and 2004 when paramilitary groups took control of this strategically located district.

Unmarked graves, mass graves and common graves abound in Colombia. The puzzle is finding those who know their whereabouts and who they contain. There’s a discrepancy in numbers as victims’ groups such as Asfaddes Medellín, Movice, Familiares Colombia and las Madres de la Candelaria which all believe there to be as many as 45,000 forcibly disappeared people across Colombia in contrast to the government’s figures of 15,000. Families seeking the whereabouts of loved ones also consider la Escombrera to be of significance in that it could hold the answers to an estimated 300 missing individuals and therefore garland Medellin with the unwelcome fame of being home to the world’s largest urban mass grave.

“They will find some things, but not the quantities that they are suggesting,” said a criminologist knowledgeable in the city and who preferred to remain anonymous in an exclusive interview. “This search is a sophism to create a distraction as the Comuna 13 has become something of a myth,” he continued.

So what is the myth surrounding Medellin’s Comuna 13, a district once routinely believed to be amongst the worst in Colombia’s second city due to gang warfare and drugs? Perhaps the answer is precisely that it has gained its notoriety for being the principal Comuna—of Medellin’s 16 Comunas—which was targeted by former President Alvaro Uribe as the one which required military intervention to pacify it. Thus, the infamous Operation Orion in 2002 was carried out and it is known that the military sent in right wing paramilitary groups first and then followed them up with an all-out assault to wrest this district from the control of leftwing guerrillas such as the FARC and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN rebels).

Certainly, this scarred hillside which for so long was a dumping ground for construction materials, household waste and even chemicals, will hold its fair share of secrets, as after Operation Orion, Comuna 13 was run by a ruthlessly savage paramilitary group known as the Bloque Cacique Nutibara under the leadership of alias “Don Berna” or Diego Murillo who was later extradited to the US in 2008 for drug trafficking and money laundering.

The excavations are not without their challenges, requiring digs to 8m in depth and which will focus on three points based on testimonies. To begin with, teams will have to move 24,000m3 of rubble and earth with heavy machinery for a period of two months before even studying the debris.

“No one can really know what they will find and what the state of preservation of the remains will be unless they attempt to excavate and recover the remains. Paleontology and Archaeology teach us that human remains (in particular bones) can survive at great depths, for hundreds of thousands of years, and that sometimes even soft tissue and clothing survive, and DNA can also be extracted. I would like to reiterate that the preservation will depend on the type of soil and whatever was dumped on the remains,” said Dr Karina Gerdau Radonic, Lecturer in Biological Anthropology at the UK’s Bournemouth University.

This situation is hardly unique to Medellin. La Escombrera itself has been visited on no less than four occasions by experts from the Attorney General’s Office since 2004 and as yet nothing of use has been uncovered. Then there are the environmental and geographical elements to consider. Colombia is home to various mountain ranges, is tectonically unstable and at the mercy of landslides, floods and heavy rainfalls across much of the country. There’s the very real fear that many remains will have shifted position from their original burial sites or have been lost altogether.

But, it’s a start down the road which hopefully can lead to closure for families and perhaps reconciliation in Colombia. While members of the leftist FARC guerrillas, involved in the peace dialogues since November 2012, have expressed their solidarity with the victims of the paramilitary killings believed to be in la Escombrera, the rebel group will be forced to recognize those disappearances carried out by members of their own.

It’s a grim reality in today’s Colombia. Killings by illegal groups in the Pacific city of Buenaventura in so-called “casas de pique” or “chop houses”, where the dismemberments of opponents occur, continue as the struggle for control of this strategic port heightens. Body parts are then bagged up weighed down with rocks and tossed out to sea. Where will forensic investigators need to look next? Grave sites attributed to the rise in gangs born from the shells of former paramilitary outfits, have been found in neighboring Venezuela as well. Nowhere, it appears, is exempt from this scourge.

The Attorney General’s website warns that some contents of their pages could be sensitive and may not be apt for minors. Here one can conduct a search through a macabre database showing items of clothing retrieved from common graves and posted online in the hope that a family comes forward to identify the missing person last seen dressed in these items. Another page offers up facial reconstruction renders, there are 64 images from the southern coca-growing department of Putumayo alone.

So, will this excavation at La Escombrera encourage further investigations around Colombia or will it lead up a blind alley and discourage the authorities from pursuing further cases? It’s hard to say. And are demobilized guerrillas or paramilitaries providing the authorities with accurate locations or leading investigators on a ruse? Unsubstantiated rumors abound that a stretch of land near to Medellin known as the Curva de Rodas was another infamous place used by gangs as a disposal area. What is not covered by new-build apartment blocks is a delicately landscaped park. In Bogota, after the military stormed the Palacio de Justicia in November 1985 in response to the siege by M19 guerrillas; those killed in the attack were supposedly unceremoniously dumped in an unused lot near to the Central Cemetery and in a more humble district of the south known as Matatigres.

Unmarked graves, mass graves and common graves abound in Colombia. The puzzle is finding those who know their whereabouts and who they contain. This is clearly easier said than done.

As the Criminologist said: “These groups are organized, the idea is to leave no evidence and no witnesses.”

It is clear that La Escombrera is just a start as thousands of Colombian families yearn for closure in a process which could easily take decades.

Sunday 2 August 2015

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/02/where-are-the-bodies-buried-in-colombia.html

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Italian authorities confirm the deaths of 14 people on board a boat carrying hundreds of refugees

Italian authorities have confirmed the deaths of 14 people on board a boat carrying hundreds of refugees and migrants across the Mediterranean on Tuesday, July 28th.

According to officials, 456 people are known to have survived and were rescued during an operation conducted by an Irish naval patrol. Among the survivors are several dozen children. The deceased and most of the survivors have been brought to shore to the Italian port of Messina.

The nationalities of those who died have not yet been confirmed. Autopsies will now be carried out on the island of Sicily to determine the exact cause of death.

However, several of the survivors from the vessel have told UNHCR they believe those who died may have suffocated after being forced to travel inside the hull of the boat.

The sea rescue took place in the Mediterranean on the afternoon of July 28, after the Irish naval vessel L.E. Niamh responded to a distress call. The Irish navy has reported that the survivors were discovered on a boat roughly 80 km north of the Libyan coast.

To date in 2015, more than 2,000 refugees and migrants are estimated to have died or gone missing at sea while attempting the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean. More than 1,300 people died in the month of April alone, prompting a number of European leaders to agree on a plan to triple the amount of money devoted to sea rescues.

Many states also committed significant resources and naval rescue ships. In addition, these efforts have been greatly enhanced by the involvement of private and other non-governmental initiatives, including one launched by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), a private philanthropic enterprise. All these measures have had a positive impact in reducing loss of life.

According to the Irish Navy, L.E. Niamh has now been involved in the rescue of more than 1,200 people as part of Ireland's contribution to the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean.

Sunday 2 August 2015

http://www.unhcr.org/55b940f66.html

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Landslide kills 20 in Manipur

Around 20 villagers were reported killed in a landslide in Manipur’s Chandel district while a 60-year-old man drowned in Thoubal district in the flash flood triggered by incessant rains and subsequent heavy rain since the last three days inundating many villages and agricutlural fields and washing away five bridges in the districts.

As the heavy rains continued non-stop from Wednesday to Friday, landslide occurred burying around 20 villagers besides sweeping away 12 houses at Joumol village, about 168 km south of here under Khengjoi Sub-division around 6.30 in the morning,sources said. Rescue operations have been undertaken by Assam Rifles and nearby villagers.But the state disaster management team could not reach the spot due to landslides at several locations along the stretch of Imphal-Moreh Highway. Thus, the bodies of the dead could not be retrieved till filing of this report.

"Rescue teams are being sent to Juomol at the earliest and will reach by tomorrow morning because of heavy rains and landslides. The government is trying to mount relief operations as effectively as possible," Chandel lawmaker Victor Nunghlung told NDTV.

What is also hampering rescue operations in the area is the damage to crucial bridges in Chandel, including one that connects Chandel town to the Juomol village. The Manipur govt says the only other route to the village is through Myanmar. This morning, choppers were spotted by local residents in the area, suggesting that the government is trying to mount air rescue and relief operations.

The flash flood inundated some portion of Indo-Myanmar route in Thoubal district and several villages under Heirok,Yairipok, Wangjing, Salungpham, Keirenbikhok, Khangabok, Wabagai, Keirak, Kakching, Hiyanglam-Hiranmei, Langmeidong, Lamjao, Pallel areas besides washing away some houses at Pallel area and one bridge built over a canal at Yairipok area in Thoubal district.

Reports from Thoubal and Chandel districts said authorities have surveyed the damage and the affected people to provide government assistance, sources added.

Two more houses of Chakpikarong Khupi village and four suspension bridges have also been washed away by flood water and Chakpi river, sources added. There were about a dozen worst affected houses around the Chandesl district headquarters and Chakpikarong area. The district authority has opened a relief camp at Maha Union higher secondary school by setting up a control room.

Reports from other districts said major rivers including Imphal, Iril,Kongba,Nambul have started to flow at an alarming level on Saturday. Some of the people residing on the riverbanks have started shifting to safer places.

Sunday 2 August 2015

http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/detailsnew.asp?id=aug0215/oth050

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Mount Ontake searchers recover body from September eruption

A body recovered after search operations on Mount Ontake resumed was identified as that of a 45-year-old man from Kai, Yamanashi Prefecture, the Nagano Prefectural Police said Saturday.

The body of Tetsuya Inooka was found Friday on the mountain that straddles the border between Nagano and Gifu prefectures. His remains were identified by relatives as well as DNA analysis.

Police concluded Inooka died after being hit by falling rocks during the sudden eruption last Sept. 27.

Inooka was one of six people still been listed as missing in the wake of the 3,067-meter-high volcano’s eruption.

“I’m relieved (the body) was found early,” said Koichi Inooka, Tetsuya’s 53-year-old brother. “I want to say ‘Welcome home.'”

Inooka was on the mountain with his wife, Hiromi, 42, when the volcano erupted. Hiromi was later found dead.

Inooka’s body, buried under a layer of volcanic ash, was found shortly after midday by a search team dispatched from the Gifu side.

Saturday 1 August 2015

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/08/01/national/searchers-on-mount-ontake-find-one-body/

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Nepal multiple landslides: Death toll reaches 36; 7 bodies recovered today from debris

Emergency workers on Friday recovered seven more bodies from the debris of multiple landslides triggered by heavy rains in Nepal, taking the confirmed death toll to 36.

Police said rescuers were still searching for six people believed missing after Thursday's landslides, which crushed villages in the western district of Kaski in the foothills of the Himalayas, around 150 kilometres west of Kathmandu.

"The number of dead has risen to 32 in our district," said Kaski police chief Kedar Rajaure.

Four more people, including an 83-year-old man, were killed in three landslides in the neighbouring districts of Myagdi and Baglung as well as in the popular tourist resort of Chitwan, according to a statement released by authorities. Scores of people die every year from flooding and landslides during the monsoon season in the Himalayan nation. Two weeks ago a student was killed when a landslide buried part of a school in the nearby town of Pokhara, and 35 people died last month when a landslide crushed villages in northeastern Nepal.

The monsoon rains are also hampering delivery of relief supplies to mountainous villages devastated by the massive earthquake that struck the Himalayan nation on April 25. More than 8,800 people were killed by the quake and a large aftershock, and many more were left without shelter.

Saturday 1 August 2015

http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-nepal-multiple-landslides-death-toll-reaches-36-7-bodies-recovered-today-from-debris-2110008

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Now, hope on sonar imagery system as 12-member crew of Navy reaches tonight at Kullu to start search operation

The Kullu administration is pinning hope on the sonar imagery system reaching Manikaran tonight with the 12-member crew of the Navy after the massive search operations to locate the remaining 35 bodies of Manikaran bus accident victims made little headway.

The sonar system and crew from Visakhapatnam is on the way and will reach Kullu tonight and start the search operations for remaining bodies from tomorrow, Special Secretary (Disaster Management) DD Sharma said, adding that eight divers of the Navy were also a part of the 12-member team.

As per the final list, there were 69 passengers in the overloaded 52-seater bus that plunged into the Parbati river on July 22 on the Bhuntar-Manikaran road. Eleven bodies had been recovered, 23 persons were injured in the accident while the search for 35 missing persons was still on, said Deputy Commissioner Kullu, Rakesh Kanwar.

More than 600 personnel from the police, SSB, Indo-Tibet Border Police, National Disaster Response Force, civil defence, Home Guards and divers of the BBMB had been pressed into rescue operations. A large number of relatives and friends of the missing persons from Mansa, Barnala and Bathinda are camping near the accident spot, waiting for a miracle to happen.



The chances of survival of the missing persons, feared to have been washed away in strong currents, are almost remote. But they are just praying for the bodies so that last rights of the deceased could be performed. “We are religious people and that was the reason that my brother went to the pilgrimage to Manikaran but he is still missing and we are desperate to get his body to perform the last rights”, said Manjit.

Saturday 1 August 2015

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/himachal/now-hope-on-sonar-imagery-system/113787.html

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MH370 wreckage may not provide the closure grieving families seek

For those who lost loved ones on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the utter mystery of exactly what happened nearly 17 months ago has only compounded their grief.

But with the discovery of a barnacle-encrusted wing part on Reunion Island in the western Indian Ocean this week, there is, for the first time, a strong clue about what may have happened to MH370 and its 239 passengers and crew on that fatal flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The finding is a possible punctuation point in an open-ended story. But it is unlikely to bring anything like full closure say those who have also lost loved ones in mysterious circumstances and have had to grapple with how to grieve the missing.

Ask Bret McCann, whose parents Lyle and Marie McCann vanished on a road trip to British Columbia five summers ago. "I've read about this," he says, "and it's called ambiguous loss, where, psychologically, you're not really sure what happened. I mean. It still bothers me."

Or ask Crystal Dunahee, for whom not having any closure is her daily reality since March 24, 1991, the day her four-year-old son Michael disappeared from an elementary school playground in Victoria, B.C.

Her situation, Dunahee says, has no real comparison to this latest glimmer of hope the families of flight MH370 victims have received.

"You have a plane incident. You know they were on the plane. Whereas we have nothing to show what happened to Michael or where he may be now. We have nothing.

We have no answers."

Just some facts

Sometimes, says author and New Hampshire-based grief counsellor Ashley Davis Bush, when people are seeking what they call closure, they're hopeful they can put an end to the pain because we are, what she calls, "a pain-averse culture."

"What they don't realize is that even when those events occur, whether it's finding a piece of evidence or prosecuting someone or finding an answer, the pain is still going to be there."

Davis Bush doesn't deny that new information can bring a certain amount of relief to grieving families. She simply cautions that "it is not going to erase the pain. It will just give you some facts that provide an answer."

In the McCann case, the last time the retired couple, both in their 70s, were seen alive was July 3, 2010. Video surveillance footage shows Lyle filling up their motorhome at a gas station in their hometown of St. Albert, Alberta.

Lyle and Marie McCann went missing in July 2010 after leaving St. Albert on their way to B.C. (RCMP)

Two days later their burned out RV was discovered in a remote area near Edson. Their bodies were never found.

At first, family members chose to believe they were lost. "For all that winter of 2010 to 2011 we looked after my parents' house, shovelled the snow and kept it clean. So by the next summer police were telling us they were ... gone," says Bret McCann.

A year after the McCanns disappeared, a court declared them legally deceased. And shortly after, the family held a public memorial service on what would have been the couple's 59th wedding anniversary.

Afterward, some family members told Bret McCann that the memorial helped them feel "better." But for him, it had another purpose: to continue the search for his parents.

"I mean, it was a meaningful memorial, but it was also another way to keep it in the public eye."

A mother's pain

Dunahee says she'd much rather know what happened to Michael, even if the answer would be heartbreaking.

"It's always there. We don't have the closure that we need to move on 100 per cent."

For her part, Davis Bush likes to remind people that "we want to believe that pain will stop, but you don't want the love to stop. Feeling the grief is part of having loved them."

For the families of those lost on MH370, their public grieving has been an eventful roller coaster of emotions in the full glare of the world media.

They've watched desperately as authorities chased several, sometimes erroneous leads and searched a vast expanse of the Indian Ocean, to no avail.

Many of the families have already stated that even if the debris is determined to have come from the missing Boeing 777, it's only one piece of a very large puzzle and not nearly enough to give them any real understanding of what happened.

That's not dissimilar to what Bret McCann is going through. Next March, Travis Vader will go on trial for the first-degree murders of Lyle and Marie McCann in Alberta.

But when asked whether that is where the McCann family hopes to find conclusive answers as to exactly where his parents may be, McCann sighs deeply.

"I think we'll know a lot more after the trial, but we won't know everything. I think we'll just ... accept that."

Saturday 1 August 2015

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mh370-wreckage-may-not-provide-the-closure-grieving-families-seek-1.3174553

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Eight persons remain missing one month after Darjeeling landslides

A month after the devastating landslides hit the Darjeeling hills, eight persons still remain missing, with search operations called off a couple of days ago.

On the night of 30 June, heavy rainfall had led to devastating landslides throughout the Darjeeling hills, with major impact seen in Mirik and some areas of Kalimpong sub division with several persons dead and missing.

Search operations were executed jointly by NDRF, SSB, state police disaster management team, and locals, who recovered some of the bodies of the deceased.

According to district administration sources, a total of eight missing persons are yet to be traced in the hills, of who five are from Kalimpong sub division area (1 from 8th Mile and 4 from Kholakham) and three are from Tingling, Mirik, under Kurseong sub division.

The bodies of one Ramesh Rai resident of 7th Mile Kalimpong, recovered from Melli area on 5 July and nine year old Shreha Sharma Suvedi, recovered from Tingling on 6 July were the last of the missing persons found.

A cousin of the Suvedi family, Balkrishna Suvedi said that that on devastating 30 June night, a total of 19 persons lost their lives in the landslides at Limbu Dhura, Tingling, in Mirik out of which 11 were from their family.

The rest were from the Thapa and the Aaley familes.

He added that out of the 19 persons missing, sixteen bodies have been recovered. The bodies of three persons from the Suvedi family, namely Ramlal Suvedi, Kumari Suvedi and Dipraj Suvedi are yet to be found.

He added that on 13 July, they had also performed the last rites of those who had died in the 30 June night landslide excluding the three missing members.

He said that till recently the SSB personnel were seen working in the landslide hit areas to find the missing persons, but for the past couple of days, they too have not been seen conducting search operations.

"As such, we are really worried and in a Dilemma regarding the missing members," he added.

When asked, Darjeeling district magistrate, Anurag Srivastava, he said that for the past couple of days, they have called off the search operation. According to records, 32 people were killed and eight missing persons are yet to be traced out in the hills, he added.

Friday 31 July 2015

http://www.thestatesman.com/news/bengal/the-case-of-the-missing-8/79105.html

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34 still missing in Kullu bus accident

Eight days after the tragic accident in which a bus with 69 people on board plunged into the Parvati River near Sarsari village, search and rescue teams have been unable to locate 34 passengers with only 12 bodies fished out till now. Of these one victim remains unidentified.

Relatives of those still missing have become desperate with many of them wandering near the accident site in hopes, which are swiftly evaporating, of finding their loved ones.

Gurmail Singh, a resident of Mansa district in Punjab, whose 22-year-old son Preet Singh was on the ill fated bus, said the tragedy had left him and his family members shattered. "I'm now a completely broken man and my wife continuously asks me about whether our son has been found," he told this reporter.

After the tragedy Gurmail and his family members arrived at the accident site along with his relatives and have been milling around in the scorching heat every day for any sign of Preet but without success, leaving them completely depressed. Like him there are about other 40 relatives of the missing bus passengers camping in Kullu, hoping against hope the search teams will be able to locate them.

The district administration has deployed 160 diving experts and others including personnel of the National Disaster Response Force, Sashastra Seema Bal (armed border force), Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the police in the search operation. The state government has now sought the assistance of the Indian navy for employing sonar, a technique that uses sound propagation, in the search efforts.

Meanwhile, families of the bus passengers whose bodies have been retrieved have urged the Punjab government to give a compensation of `10 lakh to each of them.

Friday 31 July 2015

http://www.hindustantimes.com/himachalpradesh/hopes-fading-for-35-still-missing-in-bus-mishap/article1-1374805.aspx

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All 23 people aboard crashed Lao helicopter confirmed dead

All 23 people on a Lao military helicopter that crashed earlier this week while traveling to northern Laos have been confirmed dead, military officials and state media said Thursday, though the cause of the accident remains unknown.

Air traffic control in the capital Vientiane lost contact with the MI-17 helicopter—registration number RDPL-34062—at 1:10 p.m. local time on July 27, shortly after it departed Wattay International Airport, heading for Houaphan and Xieng Khuang provinces.

The aircraft was located Wednesday crashed in a remote area of Xaysomboun province’s Longchaeng district, a Lao military official told RFA’s Lao Service, adding that all 19 passengers and four crew members were killed in the accident.

“We have accessed the crash site—all the people on board were killed because the helicopter hit a mountain in eastern Longchaeng district,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The recovery team can now retrieve all the bodies from the crash site.”

An official with Division 703 of the Lao Air Force told RFA that the remains of the dead would be flown to Vientiane for identification and then turned over to relatives for funeral proceedings.

Lao state media cited a Ministry of Defense statement Thursday confirming that all people aboard the helicopter died in the crash.

The ministry said that an investigation is underway into the cause of the crash, but preliminary findings suggest recent heavy rains and extreme weather in the region is likely to blame.

The weather has also hampered recovery efforts by a task force committee assigned to the site, which is reportedly located deep in in the jungle on a slope of Phu Bia Mountain in Longchaeng.

On Wednesday, a senior official from the Ministry of Defense told RFA that at least one of the 19 passengers was a “high-ranking military patient” who had received treatment in Hospital 103 in Vientiane and was returning to Houaphan province.

Hospital 103 is a military hospital operated by the Ministry of Defense which was built to treat soldiers.

A doctor from Hospital 103 told RFA on Wednesday that three other passengers were health professionals from the facility accompanying the patient in the helicopter.

The identities of the other passengers and crew members were not immediately known.

Recent air disasters

Aircraft in impoverished Laos are mostly outdated, and the country has suffered at least two major air disasters within the last two years.

On May 17 last year, a Ukrainian-made Antonov AN-74TK-300 aircraft owned by the Lao military crashed while approaching an airport in Xiengkhuang, killing 17 passengers, including Lao Deputy Prime Minister Douangchay Phichit, Minister of Public Security Thongbanh Sengaphone, and two other high-ranking officials.

The group was en route to attend the 55th anniversary of “strategic gains” made by the Lao military during the Indochina War, according to state media.

The crash, which was attributed to a technical error by the pilot, is the second deadliest air disaster in Lao history, after the crash of Lao Airlines Flight 301 seven months earlier.

On Oct. 16, 2013, Flight 301—an ATR-72 turboprop—plunged into the Mekong River during bad weather as it approached Pakse Airport in southern Laos’s Champasak province, killing all 49 passengers.

Six Australians, seven French, five Thai, three South Koreans, two Vietnamese, as well as passengers from China, Myanmar, Taiwan and the U.S. were killed in the crash, which was also attributed to pilot error.

Friday 31 July 2015

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/dead-07302015181429.html

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Nepal landslides kill at least 20, bury 2 villages

Landslides triggered by torrential rain in Nepal swept through two villages on Thursday, killing at least 20 people, the home ministry said.

The landslides struck the villages near the resort town of Pokhara, 125 kilometres west of Kathmandu shortly after midnight. At least 22 houses were destroyed, said ministry spokesman Laxmi Dhakal.

Krishna Bahadur Raut, a government official in the area, told Reuters about a dozen people were missing.

Two powerful earthquakes in Nepal this year that killed almost 9,000 people are believed to made slopes across the mountainous country unstable and raised the risk of landslides during the rainy season, which lasts from June to September.

Soldiers and police officials were working in heavy rain using shovels and their bare hands to search for villagers, most of whom were in their beds when the landslide struck.

The government has asked for mechanical diggers and other heavy equipment to help with the search, but their arrival from Pokhara has been held up by landslides on the roads.

Despite years of preparation for earthquakes, the government had been slow to map landslide-prone areas.

Thursday 30 July 2014

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nepal-landslides-kill-at-least-20-bury-2-villages-1.3173486

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14 bodies found in migrant ship in Mediterranean

An Irish military ship has recovered 14 bodies from a small unseaworthy fishing boat carrying more than 500 migrants.

The vessel was found around 80 kilometres north-west of the Libyan capital Tripoli.

The cause of death is as yet unknown but migrants are offen at sea for says and suffer from dehydration and sun exposure.

A ship operated by Medicines Sans Frontieres helped in the rescue and one of its members, Juan Matias Gil, described the challenge facing Europe.

“It is impossible to believe, it is very difficult to believe, that these people are coming in these conditions. We havent had another major tragedy so far because we have been very lucky and there are rescue boats are around. But for sure the operation is not enough for all the needs that we are facing.”

Later today more than 1,000 migrants are due to arrive at the Italian ports of Messina and Reggio Calabria in the latest wave of people willing to risk the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe.

So far this year more than 1,900 migrants have died in the attempt.

The European Union is still struggling to formulate a policy on ho to deal with those trying to get to Europe.

Earlier this month the bloc failed to agree on how to spread 40,000 asylum seekers in Greece among its members over the next two years, postponing the decision until the end of the year.

The LE Niamh naval ship, which has so far rescued more than 1,200 migrants as part of the international humanitarian mission, was sent to the scene.

An Irish Defence Forces spokesman said: "During searches of the barge the crew of the LE Niamh recovered 14 bodies from below the deck of the barge."

Wednesday 15 July 2015

http://www.euronews.com/2015/07/28/fourteen-migrant-bodies-recovered-in-the-continuing-exodus-from-north-africa/

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