New migrant boat tragedy sees 13 die in ferry collision as search continues for nearly others including children feared drowned in second refugee disaster

The bodies of 13 migrants were discovered after a boat collided with a ferry off the Turkish coast. The commercial vessel hit the migrant boat off the western port city of Canakkale today, Turkey's coastguard agency said in a statement on its website.

An official at the agency said eight people had been rescued following incident and search-and-rescue operations were ongoing.

Meanwhile, a search for 26 migrants missing off the coast of the Greek island of Lesbos is underway after their boat sank this morning.

A Lithuanian helicopter from European border control agency Frontex spotted people in the Aegean Sea and two coastguard vessels rushed to the scene.

They were able to rescue 20 migrants, who said they were in a boat with a total of 46 people on board. State news agency ANA said there were children among the missing.

A coastguard spokeswoman said: 'They (the migrants) told rescuers there were 46 people in the inflatable dinghy in total.'

A search is also continuing east of Lesbos for between 10 and 12 people missing in a separate sinking on yesterday morning.

The coastguard rescued 11 people in that incident and recovered an unconscious girl from the water, who later died in hospital.

Monday 21 September 2015

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3241826/Nearly-30-migrants-including-children-feared-drowned-boat-sinks-Greek-island-Lesbos.html

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Thousands of Mexican families mourn the ‘other disappeared’

On the morning of her high school graduation, Berenice Navarijo Segura was delayed for a hair and makeup appointment by an explosion of gunfire in the center of town. Her mother was up before dawn preparing stewed goat and beans for the celebration, and didn’t want her to risk going out. Her sister, who had made enough salsa for 60 guests, tried to hold back the spirited 19-year-old with questions: “Do you have your wallet? What about your phone?”

But there was a reason the family called Berenice “Princess.” She’d already paid the salon and was determined to look her best for her big day. Accustomed to dodging gunbattles in a region overrun by drug cartels, she waited for only 20 minutes after the shooting subsided before rushing out the door with a promise to be quick. She hopped onto the back of her boyfriend’s motorcycle and vanished into the ranks of Mexico’s missing.

Sixteen other people, including Berenice’s boyfriend, disappeared from Cocula on that day, July 1, 2013 — more than a year before 43 students from a teachers college were detained by police in nearby Iguala and never seen again. For all those months, most of the Cocula families kept quiet, hoping their silence might bring children and spouses home alive, fearing that a complaint might condemn them to death.

“What if I report it and my daughter is nearby and they know I reported it, they hurt her or something?” reasoned Berenice’s mother, Rosa Segura Giral. Then the disappearance of the students from the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa became an international outrage. The government rushed to investigate the crime and announced with great fanfare its official conclusion that the youths had been killed and the ashes of their incinerated bodies dumped in Cocula.

Emboldened by the sudden attention to abductions, the families of Cocula began coming forward, and hundreds of other families from the state of Guerrero emerged from silent anguish. They spoke of their misfortune to each other, often for the first time, and signed lists, adding the names of their loved ones to the government’s growing registry of 25,000 people reported missing nationwide since 2007. They swabbed the inside of their cheeks for DNA samples. And they grabbed metal rods to poke in the craggy countryside for traces of the family members whom they started calling “the other disappeared.”

Sometimes they found evidence of bodies, and sometimes the authorities dug up graves. More than 100 bodies have been pulled from the soil. But like the students of Ayotzinapa, all but one of whom are unaccounted for, so far the remains of only six of the other disappeared from around Iguala have been identified and given back to their families.

The others are still missing. And their families are the other victims.

At least 292 people have been added to the list of missing from the Iguala area since the 43 students disappeared there on Sept. 26, 2014. The poor region of the southern state of Guerrero, about 110 miles south of Mexico City, is home to some 300,000 residents, many of them farmers, cab drivers and laborers. While most families are too scared to talk publicly about their loss, The Associated Press has interviewed relatives of 158 of the “other disappeared.” Still fearful but also furious, they speak hesitantly of children, parents and siblings dragged away before their eyes, of those who left home for work or stepped out to buy milk and seemed to be swallowed by the Earth.

Or of a daughter who went out to get her hair styled for graduation and never came home. Precisely what happened to Berenice is a matter of conjecture. Her mother recalls hearing a convoy of pickup trucks skid along the gravel road in front of her cinderblock house on its way to the center of town early that morning. The sound of automatic gunfire pierced the corrugated metal roof over her smoke-blackened hearth, and hours later Segura Giral heard trucks speed past the house again on the way out of Cocula. She never dreamed that Berenice and her boyfriend might be inside one of them.

On the day Berenice disappeared, so did José Manuel Díaz García, 43, a farmer and appliance repairman in the nearby community of Apipilulco who heard the trucks stop outside his house before dawn. When the men called for him, he yelled at them not to shoot because he had children. Minerva Lopez Ramirez, his wife, said he went peacefully with five masked men. Three days later, she got a call demanding a ransom of about 300,000 pesos ($30,000), which she eventually refused to pay because they would not put her husband on the phone.

Carlos Varela Muñoz, a 28-year-old cab driver, was at his home across the river in Atlixtac when armed men arrived around 5 a.m. in three white pickups without license plates. They broke windows and forced the door. The masked men claiming to be federal police made his wife lie on her stomach as they took Varela away. There has been no ransom demand and no return.

Cocula sits in a valley in Guerrero’s mountainous north, surrounded by fields of corn and browsing goats — a bucolic setting for a valuable drug trafficking route. Opium paste collected from poppies grown in the mountains makes the journey to consumers in the United States through Cocula and Iguala. The Guerreros Unidos gang controls the route, and often defends its territory in armed clashes with its competitors La Familia Michoacana and their associates.

The authorities are of little help. Residents say they have seen local police escorting gangsters through town and consider them to be a uniformed extension of Guerreros Unidos.

That relationship was reinforced by the government investigation into the case of the 43 students, which concluded that Iguala and Cocula police had turned them over to members of Guerreros Unidos, who then killed them and disposed of the incinerated remains in Cocula. Berenice’s house sits near the turn in the road that leads out to the dumpsite, where the government said most of the human cinders were too burned even to yield DNA.

The barrage that Berenice’s family heard on graduation day came from 20 to 30 men shooting their way into the home of 23-year-old Luis Alberto Albarrán Miranda and his 14-year-old brother, José Daniel. They took the unarmed brothers away barefoot.

Less than a mile to the east of the Albarrán Miranda home, over a small hill and across a short bridge, armed men also shot their way into the home of their cousin, 15-year-old Victor Albarrán Varela. The gunmen were looking for his brother, but they took Victor instead, “as insurance,” his mother, Maura Varela Damacio, said. Cocula Mayor César Miguel Peñaloza heard the shooting through the phone when his father called him from downtown on the morning of the abductions, but said he didn’t send his force out to stop them because there were only seven police on duty and 50 gunmen. In the days that followed, he tallied 17 citizens who disappeared from his town.

Families of the missing live in limbo.

A mother with neither a child to embrace nor a grave to visit tells of checking her son’s Facebook page every evening, two years after he went missing. A young man keeps dialing his brother’s cellphone nearly four years after his disappearance, hoping someone will pick up. Every new report of a body sends them back to the morgue to face a sickening mix of relief and disappointment when they do not find their relative.

“You have three children and you say, ‘You know what, right now it is one [missing], if you keep looking, it’s going to be all three,’ ” said Guadalupe Contreras, whose 28-year-old son, Antonio Iván Contreras Mata, disappeared in Iguala in 2012. “You better keep the two you have left and forget the one who is already gone. There’s no reason to lose two more children. It feels bad. It sounds bad. But you have to make these decisions.”

Some families said they were so convinced of police complicity they did not dare report a disappearance, while others who did file a report described bureaucratic indifference, a hand held out for a bribe or a subsequent ransom demand.

They want to escape. And yet, they cannot bring themselves to move away. What if a missing child comes home one day and they aren’t there? Many of the disappeared were breadwinners in poor families; some illiterate parents were unable to offer a confident spelling of a child’s name. Men or boys accounted for all but 15 of the 158 disappeared and ranged in age from 13 to 60 years old, with the majority younger than 30.

Families left behind often spiraled into financial crisis as jobs were abandoned to search for the missing, or money was borrowed to pay a ransom. Belongings and even homes were sold. Meanwhile, many relatives said they became isolated after the disappearances. Either they withdrew because they didn’t feel they could trust anyone, or friends and neighbors pulled away, as though the tragedy that had befallen them could be contagious.

Ninfa Gutiérrez Pastrana said that after her husband, Eliseo Ocampo Ávila, a lawyer and politician in Iguala, disappeared in April 2012, even her pastor was too afraid to visit.

“You’re left completely alone,” she said. “My family used to come to see me. This happened and they left my son and me totally alone. Not even my family that lives here in Iguala visits. No one visited us. We are alone.”

Iguala is in the news again a year after the disappearance of the 43 students. Suddenly, the government’s explanation that the students’ ashes were dumped in Cocula has come into question, rejected by experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after a six-month investigation. If such high-profile disappearances remain unsolved, it does not bode well for the families of the other disappeared, who also want answers.

On Berenice’s graduation day, relatives began arriving, packed into the bed of pickups, merry and ready to celebrate Berenice’s accomplishment. They were met by anguished faces, instead.

In the days that followed, Segura Giral retreated to her bed inside a darkened house. For months, she did not go out. For more than a year, she refused to make the pizzas that were her livelihood.

But she has not lost hope for her daughter. Berenice’s dusty, gift-wrapped graduation presents still await her return atop a cabinet. “One has to learn to survive. I tell you, I hope that my daughter shows up. I always have had this impulse,” Segura Giral said, her voice fading to a whisper. “I feel like any day she is going to come back. I feel so much like she has been traveling.”

Sunday 20 September 2015

http://news.yahoo.com/mexico-arrests-cartel-figure-disappearance-43-students-205905910.html

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South Africa: Department assessing how to recover bodies of illegal miners

The Mineral Resources Department is assessing all available options to recover the bodies of illegal miners who died underground at an old East Rand mine.

The recovery operation was suspended at the closed New Kleinfontein Gold Mine in Benoni on Tuesday. "The mine rescue services could not recover the identified bodies due to significant fall of ground as well as restricted travelling and dangerous underground conditions," the department said on Friday.

"The recovery was suspended to prevent further loss of life."

It awaited a report from the mine rescue services to assess what could be done. The illegal miners gained access by digging a hole into the old underground workings.

On Monday, Gauteng police said it was believed that the illegal miners died early last week when a generator exploded underground. Due to the fumes at the time, they could not be rescued.

"The mining rescue services only identified a single body and there are possibly two other bodies as indicated by the illegal miners," the Department said.

Sunday 20 September 2015

http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/9666b58049e7f1849b73bfb28a2b9957/P-Department-assessing-how-to-recover-bodies-of-illegal-miners-20151909

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Chile Earthquake Death Toll Up to 13, Several Missing

The death toll from the powerful earthquake that struck Chile earlier this week has gone up to 13, while the number of missing people stands at six, Chilean Deputy Interior Secretary Mahmud Aleuy said.

The number of missing people stands at six, Aleuy told reporters on Friday.

Earlier figures put the death toll at 12.

An 8.3-magnitude earthquake hit Chile’s central Coquimbo Region, located about 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the capital Santiago, on Wednesday evening.

Chile’s National Office of Emergency of the Interior Ministry (ONEMI) put the quake’s magnitude at 8.4, issuing a nation-wide red alert and requesting an evacuation of Chile’s entire national coastline.

The earthquake triggered Pacific-wide tsunami waves and about one million people were evacuated from Pacific coastal areas.

The highest tsunami observed in Chile were in Coquimbo, where three waves were recorded to be at least 4 meters (13 feet). Hundreds of homes in Chile were declared uninhabitable or destroyed following the earthquake and the tsunami.

The highest tsunami observed outside Chile were in French Polynesia.

Few dead thanks to fortified buildings and alerts

Parts of this port city were a disaster zone Thursday after an 8.3-magnitude quake hit off the coast, killing at least 13 people and likely causing billions in damage. Overturned cars and splintered boats sat in mud next to furniture, toppled adobe homes and fishing nets tangled in trees.

The most stunning thing about Wednesday night's earthquake, however, may be the relatively low amount of havoc caused by such a powerful shake.

While the quake led more than 1 million to evacuate coastal areas and no doubt caused much anxiety, seismologists said Chile's heavy investment in structural reinforcement of buildings and constant refinement of its tsunami alert system helped prevent what would have been a catastrophe in less prepared nations.

"Chile has good codes and good compliance, which together have reduced the vulnerabilities of their building stock over the decades," said Richard Olson, director of Florida International University's Extreme Events Institute. "I would rather be there in one of their cities than in many other countries in an earthquake."

Living in one of the world's most seismically active places, the Andean nation's 17 million people have little choice but become experts in earthquakes. The strongest earthquake ever recorded happened in Chile: a magnitude-9.5 tremor in 1960 that killed more than 5,000 people.

After another major earthquake in 1985, authorities began implementing strict construction codes similar to those used for highly seismic regions in the United States such as California, said Kishor Jaiswal, a civil engineer with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Most buildings in urban areas of Chile are designed to withstand both the vertical forces of gravity and the horizontal jolts that an earthquake inflicts. Building methods in many other developing countries can withstand gravity and wind but have limited resistance against very strong earthquakes.

Wednesday's quake struck just offshore in the Pacific at 7:54 p.m. and was centered about 141 miles (228 kilometers) north-northwest of Santiago. The quake was 7.4 miles (12 kilometers) below the surface.

It lasted a nerve-shattering three minutes, swayed buildings in the capital, Santiago, and prompting authorities to issue a tsunami warning for the country's entire Pacific coast. People sought safety in the streets of inland cities, while others along the shore took to their cars to race to higher ground. Several coastal towns were flooded from small tsunami waves.

Interior Minister Jorge Burgos said Thursday night that the death toll stood at 12 and five people were listed as missing.

Fortified constructions were evident in Coquimbo, a city that was one of the closest to the epicenter. While adobe houses and some small concrete structures collapsed, the vast majority of buildings were intact.

A small area of the city, which neighbors La Serena, was covered in mud left by inrushing waves. Boats and cars were overturned, and dead fish were mixed in with debris.

"It looks like a war zone here," said Marcelo Leyea, a mechanic carrying a duffel bag with tools he was able to salvage from his collapsed shop. "But we were more prepared than during the 2010 earthquake."

Even fortified infrastructure didn't prevent a high death toll in 2010, when a magnitude-8.8 quake in south-central Chile killed more than 500 people, destroyed 220,000 homes and washed away docks, riverfronts and seaside resorts.

To be sure, the 2010 quake was 5.6 times more powerful in terms of energy released, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. And while the 2010 quake hit in the middle of the night, Wednesday's tremor hit during an evening when many Chileans were outside for barbecues and other celebrations ahead of the country's Independence Day on Friday.

People were also more prepared. Schools increasingly have earthquake drills and society is filled with creative solutions to quakes, such as restaurant owners who nail wood railings to shelves to keep glasses and liquor from crashing down.

Many argue, however, that the biggest problem in 2010 was human error. That quake hit just 11 days before the end of President Michelle Bachelet's first term and the government's national emergency office failed to issue a tsunami warning to evacuate the coast after the quake struck near the southern city of Concepcion.

Bachelet and emergency officials made no such mistakes Wednesday, issuing tsunami alerts soon after the quake hit and keeping them in effect until after 6 a.m. Thursday.

Classes across the country were canceled for Thursday, a measure aimed to keep people from putting themselves at risk.



Residents said they received evacuation orders on their cellphones minutes after the quake hit.

"The alerts worked well. We had enough time" to evacuate before the tsunami waves came, said Patricio Farria, a fisherman whose shop close to the coast was wrecked. "Two people died here, but there could have been many more. I think Bachelet learned her lesson."

"Everyone who felt Wednesday's earthquake had the experience of 2010," said Paulina Gonzalez, a civil engineer who teaches building design for earthquakes at the University of Chile in Santiago. "Many went to higher ground even before the official evacuation alerts."

Saturday 19 September 2015

http://sputniknews.com/world/20150919/1027229907.html

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2015/09/18/massive-chilean-quake-left-only-12-dead-thanks-to-fortified-buildings-and/

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Death toll rises to 183 after South Sudan fuel tanker explosion

At least 186 people are now thought have been killed and even more injured in an oil tanker explosion in South Sudan this week, the government said on Friday.

The incident occurred on Wednesday on a road some 250km west of the capital Juba, close to the small town of Maridi, with the victims including locals who tried to scoop up the fuel spill.

"According to the reports that we received, the death toll is 186. The number of injured is bigger than that. We are unable to ascertain the actual number up to now," South Sudan's Information Minister Michael Makuei told reporters, confirming earlier reports that at least 150 were dead.

"That is a very unfortunate situation," he said, adding President Salva Kiir had declared three days of national mourning.

"All the flags are expected to be at half mast with effect from today. The president and the government extend heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims," he added.

Local media reports said doctors were struggling to cope with limited supplies to treat severe burns, including a lack of painkillers.

The local government director of Maridi, John Saki, told South Sudan's Gurtong news site that about a thousand people crowded around the tanker to gather fuel after it crashed on the roadside, with many coming from a nearby school.

Mass grave for victims

Those visiting the wounded in the hugely overstretched hospital in Maridi described horrific scenes.

"Some people are burned all [over their] legs, some the hands, some the whole body, the back," one witness told Radio Tamazuj. "They look like a white person."

Fuel leaks and oil tanker accidents in Africa often draw huge crowds scrambling to scoop up the fuel, resulting in many deaths due to accidental fires.

One of the worst such accidents was in Nigeria in 1998, when over 1,000 people died in the southeastern Delta State when a pipeline exploded as people tried to steal fuel.

Radio Tamazuj said dozens of bodies were burned beyond recognition and were being buried in a mass grave.



South Sudan is in the grip of a dire economic crisis sparked by over 21 months of civil war, which has caused rampant inflation and soaring prices of basics, including food and fuel.

South Sudan is the world's youngest nation, having gained independence from Khartoum in 2011. It descended into civil war in December 2013 when President Kiir accused Riek Machar, his former deputy and now a rebel leader, of planning a coup.

The violence has left tens of thousands of people dead and the impoverished country split along ethnic lines.

Over two million people have fled their homes in a war marked by gang rapes and the use of child soldiers.

The government and rebels signed a peace deal on August 29, but the ceasefire - the eighth agreed - has been repeatedly broken.

Saturday 19 September 2015

http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/At-least-186-killed-in-South-Sudan-tanker-blast-official-20150918

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Remains of 1974 plane crash in Cypriot recovered

Cypriot authorities said on Friday that the remains of several victims of a plane crash 41 years ago have been recovered from the crash site. The crashed plane was a French-built Nord Noratlas transporter of the Greek Air Force shot down by friendly fire in the dark hours of July 22, 1974, as it was flying in reinforcements for the Cypriot National Guard which was facing a large Turkish force trying to capture Nicosia airport.

Turkey occupied the northern part of Cyprus in the fighting, in response to a coup by Greek junta army officers. Presidential Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs Fotis Fotiou said a large number of human bones has been found, but could not say to how many people they belonged, reports Xinhua. The Noratlas flight was part of a plan to transport a battalion of commandos from Crete to Cyprus. Only one of the 32 people aboard the plane survived the crash, which happened a short distance from the airport runaway.

Twelve bodies were recovered at the time, but the remaining 19 were covered over with earth because of the proximity to the fighting. The place was later turned into a military cemetery for thousands of Greek Cypriots killed in the fighting and a monument for the fallen was erected over the crash site. ”The difficult task of scientific identification of the bones will get under way within the next few days. We hope we will be able to put an end to the uncertainty of the relatives of the dead people,” Fotiou said.

Saturday 19 September 2015

http://www.india.com/news/world/remains-of-1974-plane-crash-in-cypriot-recovered-559813/

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DNA Samples Of Next-of-kin Of 2 Missing Malaysian Pilgrims Handed To Saudi Authorities

DNA samples of the next-of-kin of two Malaysian pilgrims who are still missing after a crane collapsed on the Grand Mosque here on Sept 11, have been handed over to the Saudi authorities to facilitate identification of bodies at the Muaissem mortuary in Mina.

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Dr Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki said the next-of-kin of the missing pilgrims arrived in Jeddah at 6.15pm yesterday and were taken to the mortuary to obtain their specimen samples.

"The process of matching the remains with the DNA will take between two and three weeks, three of them (the next-of-kin) will be here until the process is completed," he told reporters here Saturday.

Five Malaysian pilgrims were killed in the crane tragedy which also claimed over 100 lives.

Asyraf Wajdi arrived here yesterday, to help expedite the search process for the missing duo, apart from ensuring the smooth running of the haj pilgrimage of the Malaysian pilgrims.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom and Tabung Haji chairman Datuk Seri Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim were also here since Monday until yesterday, to ensure the smooth flow of funerals for the pilgrims who were killed, apart from giving special attention to the injured pilgrims, as well as moral support to the other pilgrims.

"Many things have been settled by the minister (Jamil Khir) and so far, Malaysia is the only country that had sent a minister to manage the haj pilgrims involved in the tragedy," said Asyraf Wajdi.

Jamil Khir was reported as saying there were seven bags containing body parts of pilgrims and the Saudi authorities had already conducted the DNA test on the parts.

Saturday 19 September 2015

http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v8/ge/newsgeneral.php?id=1172836

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Texas Border Sheriff works with Mexico to find missing persons

A Texas border sheriff and Mexican officials have begun working together in a unique partnership of sorts that has resulted in finding answers to missing persons cases as well as in capturing U.S. fugitives hiding in Mexico.

The partnership, which has already resulted in various successful extraditions, began when Roberto Rene Rodriguez (pictured above), an agent assigned to a task force with the Coahuila Attorney General’s Office and Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office, reached out to the Maverick County Sheriff’s Office, said Sheriff Tom Schmerber this week during an interview with Breitbart Texas.

In years past, Coahuila had been a stronghold for Los Zetas and over time law enforcement cooperation between the two countries had come to a halt. That changed when Schmerber and Rodriguez began to work together and over time Coahuila and Maverick County have closed multiple cases pertinent to both sides of the border.

Both lawmen travelled to Arizona to speak about their quest for answers and to invite other border sheriffs in an effort to expand the cooperation.

One of the key ways the two sides work deals with running missing person’s name by individuals in prisons and jails on both sides of the border. The lawmen also share DNA results of bodies found in clandestine graves. Other areas of cooperation include sharing information of missing illegal immigrants and those that have been deported.

Breitbart Texas spoke with Rodriguez after the conference about some of the cases that his agency has been able to close.

In searching for missing individuals, Rodriguez has found that in some of the cases, individuals reported missing in Coahuila have in fact crossed over to the United States and have been arrested for various criminal charges that include drug trafficking, human smuggling, robberies, and murder.

“This has helped us to give answers to the relatives in Mexico,” Rodriguez said. “It has been our experience that many times the relatives did not know that their loved one had crossed into the U.S. and much less that their loved one was involved in criminal activity.”

Friday 18 September 2015

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/09/17/texas-border-sheriff-works-mexico-find-missing-persons-criminals/

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British Colombia's high number of unidentified bodies: who are they?

There are about 181 unidentified bodies in British Colombia, which account for more than half of all such cases in Canada, according to the RCMP's Unidentified Human Remains Unit in Surrey, B.C.

Due to having the highest numbers in the country, B.C. is one of the only provinces with a dedicated unit tasked with identifying human remains. B.C.'s Identification and Disaster Response Unit [IDRU] typically investigates three types of cases. Unidentified Human Remains cases, like the ones we are talking about here, are cases where, due to circumstances related to their death, the deceased person cannot be identified.

Unidentified Partial Remains cases feature victims who have been identified, but are incomplete. The IDRU's role is to re-associate any additional remains they find belonging to that person with the identified body or previously discovered remains. Presumed Deaths are cases where people are missing and their bodies could not be located or recovered. It's the IDRU's responsibility to find proof of death so these people can be declared legally deceased under the Coroners Act. Laurel Clegg, head of the IDRU, offers some insight as to why so many people who die in B.C. go unidentified.

Who Are These People?

This simple question doesn't have a simple answer. It would be nice to have a profile of the average unidentified body featuring the average age, ethnicity, sex and other identifying factors, but it just isn't that straightforward.

“Unidentified Human Remains represent the population of the province and are just as varied in age – from newborns to those in their 80’s – sex and ethnicity as the province itself,” says Clegg.

B.C.'s oldest case of unidentified remains on the books right now is from 1962. Back then, technology just wasn't available to solve these cases, but significant inroads have been made since then. The IDRU can now go back and solve many of these cold cases using tools like DNA, isotope analysis and forensic dentistry, but there are still a number of barriers to identification.

“Unfortunately, lack of identification often co-exists with lack of other information such as cause and manner of death, or incomplete remains; as such, it is rarely possible to determine if unidentified remains are particularly associated with other factors in the province,” says Clegg.

These factors include B.C.'s harsh geography, foul play, the economic status of the deceased or any other factor that could determine who these people are. “Unidentified remains, once identified – and if possible, with a cause of death – are representative of the populace of British Columbia, with the majority of deaths being undetermined, accidental or suicide,” says Clegg.

Where these remains are found is also representative of the distribution of B.C.'s population, with more unidentified remains cases occurring in the Lower Mainland, than in the remote areas of the province. Plus, the extreme landscapes of B.C. mean that more unidentified remains are found in or next to water, along remote roads, or in remote locations.

Why Are So Many of the Unidentified in B.C.?

The province's landscapes are a double-edged sword. While B.C.'s moderate temperatures mean it's possible to live outside in some areas year-round, the rough terrain means quite a few places are deceptively treacherous. It also doesn't help matters being surrounded by large bodies of water.

“Rivers, ports, glacial lakes and oceans can make identification of human remains very challenging,” confirms Clegg.

Since B.C. is one of Canada's only provinces with a dedicated unit for identifying unknown human remains, and thus reporting when they're located, it's difficult to determine whether B.C.'s numbers of unidentified deaths are actually higher than other provinces, or they just get reported and investigated more often because of this dedicated unit.

Another challenge facing investigators like Clegg, when it comes to identifying human remains, is time. “The longer a person has been missing, the more difficult it becomes to gather information, such as dental records and DNA, from that missing person or their relatives,” says Clegg.

This is where the deceased person's socioeconomic status may play a role. Obviously, if people are going to be found, they have to be reported missing and that comes down to how likely a person will be reported missing, or not show up for work. The poorer or more marginalized someone is, the less likely they'll be missed or even have a job in the first place.

“It does not change how we investigate at the coroner service,” insists Clegg.

“Unidentified remains present the same challenges, regardless of the social standing of the individual they represent.”

While time stands as a hindrance to any investigation by the IDRU, Clegg says time is simultaneously their greatest ally. “We constantly revisit unsolved cases and look at new ways of analysis. In this context, time offers us the promise of new techniques to solve what may be, at present, unsolvable.”

How Are These Cases Solved?

The B.C. Coroners Service investigates over 8,000 deaths every year and most of them are easily identifiable. Those cases that aren't so easy are given to the IDRU. Responsible for the investigation (and sometimes recovery) of unidentified human remains, the unit consists of two forensic scientists, a GIS analyst, who looks at digital geographic maps linked to databases, and a data analyst.

In addition to working the 181 unidentified death cases already on the books, the IDRU assists other coroners in solving new unidentified remains cases. Most of the cases are ones that weren't solvable back in the day, but thanks to technology, like nuclear and mitochondrial DNA analysis, are now able to be put to bed. “The unit works with various police agencies, including the RCMP who provide information on missing persons,which allow us to make comparisons against the remains,” says Clegg.

The IDRU also has a DNA databank specifically designed for making genetic comparisons of missing persons and unidentified human remains. Aside from DNA, the IDRU also uses facial recognition, dental comparison, surgical interventions (including tattoos), and isotope analysis.

“Also, there are patterns, and such patterns are studied by the Coroners Research Division, which pulls information from all cases to make recommendations that help ultimately reduce the likelihood of unnatural deaths.” she continues.

For example, an analysis of accidental drownings in B.C. lakes and rivers showed that, especially in the summer months, a significant number of drownings were from people who were visiting from out of province or out of country. This led to further investigations, which then led to the realization that (a) many visitors from elsewhere are unlikely to understand that B.C. waters tend to be colder, deeper and have more abrupt drop offs than elsewhere, even in Canada, and (b) many foreign tourists might not be able to understand danger signs posted only in English.

This in turn led to some bulletins encouraging hosts (individual or corporate) to explain B.C. waters carefully to visitors. The Coroners Service also worked with provincial and local park officials to ensure signs included pictographs that could be understood by those with weak English language skills.

If You Know Something, Say Something

For all the work the IDRU does to put a face to unidentified remains and bring closure to families, none of their success is possible without the help of the public. However, it is the police's responsibility to conduct missing persons investigations and follow-up with families, or whoever is reporting a disappearance. The Coroners Service only investigates human remains and usually has no jurisdiction until the remains are found.

“Of course, the two investigations are interconnected. We need to know about missing persons in order to match them with unidentified remains. We work with missing persons units within the police to facilitate collection of DNA and general information. The data collected is then compared against our collection of remains for eventual identification,” says Clegg.

In the past, though, there have been concerns over missing persons reports not being taken seriously.

“Initiatives to improve the system for sharing information on missing persons with coroners and medical examiners across the country will no doubt improve our ability to make comparisons, and thus, identifications,” says Clegg.

If you'd like to contribute to improving the existing system, Clegg recommends getting involved. You can do that by going to the B.C. Coroners Service or the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains websites where you can assist in identifying clothing, tattoos and faces.

“We are frequently assisted by other organizations such as the Doe Network who forward tips which we follow up with comparisons. We also work with many police agencies who constantly revisit unsolved missing persons cases, both within and outside of British Columbia. One very important factor, in being able to complete this work, is that people report others missing,” says Clegg.

“Sometimes we will identify someone only because they have finally been reported missing and thus we can include them for comparison. Anyone can report someone missing – not just family members – and it doesn’t matter how long it has been since their disappearance.”

Friday 18 September 2015

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/b-c--has-the-highest-number-of-identified-bodies-in-the-country--who-are-they-200208875.html

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Korean War: Julie Bishop in renewed push to find 43 Australian servicemen still missing in action

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will lead a renewed diplomatic effort to retrieve the remains of Australian servicemen still listed as missing in action in Korea.

Of the 17,000 Australians who served in the conflict, 340 were killed and the bodies of some of those men were never brought home.

There are 43 Australian servicemen officially classified as MIA in Korea.

The Federal Government will again ask North Korea for access to sites along its demilitarised zone and attempt to recover any Australian remains.

Assistant Defence Minister Stuart Robert has a personal interest in the Korean War. His uncle was the first RAAF pilot shot down over North Korea in July 1950.

Although his uncle's body was brought home, Mr Robert knows many others families were left in limbo.

"I have enormous empathy for the families of the ... Australians whose remains aren't recovered," Mr Robert said.

While Pyongyang was not "welcoming us with open arms", he said the Government remained hopeful the North Koreans would grant Australia access to these sites.

"We hope for a break in the ice, as our Foreign Minister connects slowly with theirs," he said.

"But this may be a long waiting game."

'I'll give up when they identify remains'

Private John Philip Saunders was among the Australian soldiers who never returned from Korea.

Ian Saunders was just four years old when his father left for the war.

He has spent decades trying to locate the remains of his father and the other Australian servicemen.

"I'll give up when they identify remains, preferably all," Mr Saunders said.

He has maintained daily email contact with a tight-knit group of families and veterans, and written countless letters to defence bureaucrats and politicians in Australia and overseas.

Mr Saunders has been recognised with an OAM for his service to the families of Australian MIA soldiers in the Korean War.

US Army recovers 1,000 remains, almost 400 unidentified

"We do believe that there have been some [remains] recovered and they could only be described as unknown," he said.

The United States Army has recovered the remains of some 1,000 Korean MIAs, but almost 400 are yet to be identified.

Some of those bodies are stored at a US defence facility in Hawaii.

Mr Saunders believes some Australians could be among them and he has collected dozens of DNA samples from relatives of the missing men.

He now wants the Government to work with the Americans to try to find a match.

The Government said it was open to the idea.

"We've certainly made it very clear to our American friends that if they choose to do that work, then we'd be very keen to see what the results are," Mr Robert said.

More than anything else, Mr Saunders wants a headstone for his father and the 43 other men still listed as MIA.

"Let's drop the tag that it's the 'Forgotten War' and do something about it and don't forget to bring them back," he said.

Friday 18 September 2015

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-18/fresh-push-to-locate-bodies-still-missing-from-the-korean-war/6787500

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Libyan locals give 'dignified end' to unidentified refugee victims

For the Libyan coastal town of Zuwara, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the Tunisian border, people smuggling — a lucrative and widespread business — is starting to leave its marks. Here, on the city’s 85-kilometer strip of beach, the large number of corpses of washed-ashore refugees, who were hoping to reach Europe for a better life, is becoming increasingly disturbing for the city’s locals.

“People deserve a dignified end,” said one of Zuwara’s locals. Waled, who declined to reveal his real name for safety concerns, is the first person in the city to take care of the corpses that wash ashore. He can’t recount how many bodies he has witnessed thus far. “Too many,” he told Al-Monitor. Most of them are men between the ages of 20 and 35, from countries such as Sudan, Nigeria and Syria. It is impossible to estimate how many bodies he has buried; often, there are as many as two bodies per day, he said.

Waled, 27, studied to become a veterinarian in Tripoli but returned to Zuwara last year. He quickly realized that his skills were far more needed on the shores of Zuwara than with the city’s pets. Today, as soon as locals see a body that has washed ashore, they call Waled — everybody in the area knows about his work. He was taught forensic inspection while at university, and now he carefully takes care of the bodies. He identifies victims by taking their photos and gives them dignified ends by burying them; at the same time, he makes sure there isn’t any risk of contagious infections for him or the people who have been in contact with the bodies.

Most of the bodies that Waled encounters carry some sort of identification card. In desperate attempts to keep their loved ones informed, those making the crossing often write down their names and families' contact details on the life vests. The identification process is important, but for those without identification cards it gets trickier. In Waled’s archive of bodies, he documents DNA samples and specific identifying information such as tattoos or birth marks, in addition to sex, estimated age and skin color. Family members of those missing contact Waled for information about a relative’s fate, upon which he compares his descriptions and photos of the bodies he encountered. Thanks to his efforts they sometimes have a grave to turn to. Today, there are two cemeteries in Zuwara; the original one is in central Zuwara, while the second one is 40 kilometers south of Zuwara. Volunteers who assist Waled dug out the graves.

This is high season for the people-smuggling business. At the end of August, a boat that left Zuwara with 400 people capsized in bad weather. Roughly 200 people are feared dead, adding to the already high toll of more than 2,300 people who have died at sea so far this year in their quest to reach Europe, according to estimates of the International Organization for Migration. Last year, the figure was 3,279. Many are African but others come from the Middle East; some are escaping the war in Syria and try crossing the sea for a better life in Europe. The people-smuggling networks in Libya are widespread, but the area around Zuwara has become a central point for the smugglers. The networks can operate fairly freely because of the country's conflict, and today many boats leave from the Zuwara area.

The Libyan coast guard operating outside the city’s coastline cooperates with Waled. With two vessels they try to cover an area that reaches 70 kilometers out at sea from the Zuwara coastline, within which they usually face a boat with refugees once or twice a day. When they encounter a body at sea or on the shore, they inform Waled to make sure that someone is there when the body is brought into the harbor. But many of the roughly 25 men in the Zuwara coast guard have never received any training in how to deal with bodies. Yet, due to the high number of overcrowded boats and often dire weather conditions, sometimes they are transporting as many as 25 corpses at a time.

For the first time, sitting in a conference hall in the southern Tunisian harbor city of Zarzis during a training session with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Sept. 8, 15 members of Zuwara’s coast guard discussed the risk of infections. Their biggest concern is the lack of equipment and the risk of diseases when touching the bodies, which sometimes have been lying in the water or the sun for an extended period. The smell, as they describe it, is the worst. To improve their work, MSF provides them with protection gear including boots, gloves and facial masks. For their rescue operations, they receive life vests and advice from MSF on how to facilitate these missions. Even though it is a tough job, often requiring the coast guards themselves to pay for the ships’ fuel from their own pockets, there is no hesitation in their commitment. “We don’t need to ask why or where they are going,” said one of the coast guards with determination. “It’s my duty as a human to rescue you.”

Last week, Zuwara’s locals mobilized in a demonstration against the people-smuggling business. Protesters held signs that read “Stop Killing Children,” and a boat was painted with images of money and bodies to portray how they conceived the smuggling business. But the phenomenon is not new and demonstrations have been held since 2012. The smugglers are not from Zuwara, Waled said, but they are people who take advantage of the Libyan conflict in order to make money. Yet, Waled believes that these demonstrations will have a positive effect in the fight against these smuggling activities. People are tired of the situation and want to force them out.

Thursday 17 September 2015

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/09/libya-locals-refugee-dignified-end-tunisia.html#ixzz3lzo3zZ6D

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Last of 17 missing miners in Mankayan retrieved

The final body in the Mankayan tragedy which saw scores of small-scale miners and their families buried by a huge landslide was finally found afternoon of Wednesday, September 16. But a snafu in the identification of the bodies may cause the exhumation of some of the bodies.

At about 1 pm, the body of who could have been the financier and leader of the group, Ronaldo Angel of Aurora Province, was found after 6 days. Rescuers in the field, however, said that the body was that of Rocky Mangrobang, who was supposedly found last August 31.

Yesterday, the rescuers, headed by Senior Superintendent Jonathan G. Calixto, commanding officer of the Benguet Provincial Public Safety Company (BPPSC), found the body supposedly of Mark Balicdan but it turned out the body is that of Harold Baturi, who was reportedly found August 31 as well and whose body was sent to Aurora.

Now the rescuers would have to return the body from Aurora as this belonged to Balicdan who is a native of Mankayan.

They are expected to do the same with Mangrobang and Angel.

But aside from the snafu, the recovery of all the missing bodies is a tribute to Calixto's men and almost all the people of Mankayan who had been here since August 21.

Calixto said about 500 people were there every day despite rains and danger of new landslides.

He said some of the villagers already wanted to hold a cleansing ritual and end the search but he was able to convince the volunteers to continue.

They are set to hold a thanksgiving ritual this week.

Friday 18 September 2015

http://www.rappler.com/nation/106137-last-missing-miners-mankayan-retrieved

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Missing pilgrims’ next of kin to undergo DNA test at Saudi mortuary

The next of kin of the two Malaysian pilgrims who are still unaccounted for after a crane collapsed on the Grand Mosque in Mecca last Friday will undergo the DNA test for the purpose of identifying bodies at the Muaissem mortuary in Mina.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom said the results would be known in the next two or three weeks. The two missing pilgrims were Shahidan Saad, 52, from Kodiang, Kedah, and Abdul Habib Lahman, 68, from Sik, Kedah.

"At the Muaissem mortuary, there are seven bags containing body parts of pilgrims and the Saudi authority had already conducted the DNA test on the body parts in the bags." He said the authority was now waiting for the next of kin of missing pilgrims to undergo the test to find possible matches.

The next of kin of the missing pilgrims to undergo the test are Sobri and Zulhakim, two brothers of Shahidan, and Mohamad Fazil, son of Abdul Habib. The three of them are expected to arrive here from Malaysia at 7 pm (midnight Malaysian time).

Jamil Khir said the Tabung Haji medical team would take the follow up action upon receiving the results. "Further announcement will be made after all tests are done.

Thursday 17 September 2015

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/missing-pilgrims-next-of-kin-to-undergo-dna-test-at-saudi-mortuary

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Remains of second Mexican student identified

Forensic experts in Austria have identified the remains of a second Mexican student who was among a group of 43 who vanished after they were detained by police, as the first anniversary of their disappearance approaches.

Mexico’s attorney-general Arely Gómez said that DNA evidence from bone fragments analysed by the University of Innsbruck corresponded to Jhosivani Guerrero de la Cruz. It represented a “step forward” that would “strengthen the investigation” into the tragedy

They disappeared in the town of Iguala in Guerrero state.

He confirmed the identification of Jhosivani Guerrero de la Cruz, found in a rubbish dump outside the city.

Austrian forensic officials have been carrying out tests. The remains of another student Alexander Mora Venancio were identified last December.

The group disappeared in September last year when they were on their way to take part in a demonstration.

Relatives of the students have questioned the account of the Mexican authorities who said corrupt local police handed over the students after to local drug gangs who had then killed them and burnt the bodies.

This month the government was embarrassed when a team of independent experts appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights demolished the official “historic truth” that the students had been burnt to ashes on a funeral pyre on a rubbish dump in the western state of Guerrero, and their remains thrown in bags into a nearby river.

The report found there was no evidence to support such a thesis and that such a bonfire was scientifically impossible.

Ms Gómez, making the announcement on Mexico’s independence day, said Mr Guerrero de la Cruz had been identified from mitochondrial DNA analysis. Mexico last year sent 17 bone fragments to Austria, but experts there initially succeeded in identifying only one student, Alexander Mora Venancio. Guerrero de la Cruz was identified after a third DNA test, the attorney-general said.

The Mexican government said it would send forensic experts to the area.

The attorney-general’s office and an Argentine forensic team assisting in the investigation had initially selected the 17 best preserved bone fragments, among some 63,000 found on the dump or in bags thrown into the river, to send to Austria for testing. The other fragments would be reassessed to see whether others could be sent to Innsbruck, Ms Gómez said.

In their report, based on an assessment from a fire expert, the independent team concluded that there was no evidence in the rubbish dump that there could have been a pyre of the dimensions required to cremate 43 bodies. The official Mexican investigation had been based on confessions by the alleged perpetrators, but the independent experts said there was evidence the confessions were made after they had been tortured.

The fire expert, José Torero, immediately found his conclusions and credentials questioned by pro-government commentators. The attorney-general has already announced that a new team of fire experts will assess the rubbish dump in an attempt to establish what happened, and said Mexican authorities “will not rest” until the disappearance has been solved and the perpetrators brought to justice.

Mexico also faces questions, which the authorities have yet to address, raised by the independent experts’ report into the events of last year, when the students came under fire by police after commandeering five buses to take them to a rally in Mexico City.

The experts highlighted the possible involvement of federal police in the incidents, although the government has laid the blame on corrupt local police in the pay of a drug gang.

The experts also questioned why an army intelligence officer appeared to have been fully aware of the attacks but did nothing to stop them and why there had been a communications blackout at a security forces communications control centre at times while the attacks on the students were under way. It also called for clarification of the identity of a man who had appeared to be directing the attacks.

Thursday 17 September 2015

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34275894

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1903c0b8-5cdb-11e5-97e9-7f0bf5e7177b.html

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Makkah accident dead laid to rest

The morgue in Mina has begun releasing the bodies of the victims of Friday’s crane crash tragedy, with those conclusively identified by their relatives and consulates buried at a local graveyard on Monday.

“The funeral prayers for 10 of the 11 Indian victims were held at the Grand Mosque in Makkah after Isha prayer,” said Indian Consul General B.S. Mubarak.

Of the two Britons who died in the accident, one, Qasim Akram, from Bolton, was buried in Makkah after Fajr on Monday, said British Consul General Mohammed Shokat.

The second confirmed victim from the United Kingdom, Kamran Khan from Slough, is yet to be buried because his relatives are expected to arrive from their home country.

Meanwhile, Turkey has confirmed that eight of its nationals died in the accident. Ekrem Keles, vice president of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, said the bodies of the Turkish pilgrims would be buried in the holy land as requested by their families.

The Egyptian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Afifi Abdul Wahab, said the Egyptian victims can either be buried in Makkah or their bodies sent back to their relatives if this request was made.

Tuesday 15 September 2015

http://www.arabnews.com/featured/news/806486

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At least 22 migrants drown as boat capsizes in Aegean Sea

At least 22 migrants, including four children, have drowned while 211 migrants have been rescued after a Kos-bound boat capsized in the Aegean Sea.

The 20-meter wooden boat, which was also used for boat tours, capsized at around 6 a.m. on Sept. 15 off the coast of Turkey’s southwestern Datça district.

The boat was en route to the Greek island of Kos with an unknown number of migrants.

Five coast guard boats were dispatched to the crash site, and 211 migrants were rescued while the bodies of the 22 drowned migrants were recovered from the sea.

Rescued migrants are being brought to Turkey's Aegean coastal town of Bodrum via coast guard boats, alongside the sunken boat.

Meanwhile, two Syrian migrants attempting to reach a Greek island drowned on Sept. 14 after their dinghy capsized off the coast of İzmir’s Seferihisar district.

A fishing boat spotted the migrants at around 10:55 a.m. and started rescue efforts. Coast guard boats soon joined the effort and managed to rescue 11 migrants while recovering the bodies of two others.

Tuesday 15 September 2015

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/at-least-13-migrants-drown-as-boat-capsizes-in-aegean-sea.aspx?pageID=238&nid=88492

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Dozens of migrants drown as boat capsizes in Aegean Sea

The Greek Coast Guard recovered the bodies of 34 migrants, including 15 children, on Sunday in the Aegean Sea after their wooden boat flipped over in strong winds as it attempted the short but often perilous crossing from nearby Turkey.

Four babies and 11 young children -- six boys and five girls -- were among those on the stricken wooden boat when it sank off the island of Farmakonisi.

Eight of the victims were found by coastguard frogmen in the hold of the boat.

Rescuers, who were alerted shortly before dawn by a resident of Farmakonisi, found most of the bodies floating near the wreck.

The victims’ nationalities were not immediately known.

A total of 34 people were found dead, while another 68 were plucked alive from the sea and a further 30 managed to swim to safety on a beach on the island, according to latest coastguard figures.

The exact number of those aboard remains unknown but the ANA said the boat was overcrowded and went down because of high winds in the area.

A Greek navy ship was taking the bodies to Rhodes while the survivors were being transported to Leros.

After nightfall, Coast Guard vessels continued to scour the area for survivors. Rescuers were also searching for four children who had been missing since Saturday after their boat capsized off the island of Samos, north of Farmakonisi.

The coastguard was also still searching on Sunday for four children missing after another boat capsized on Saturday off Samos, a Greek island just off the Turkish coast.

The latest tragedies follow the death of a Syrian toddler whose lifeless body was photographed washed up on a Turkish beach last week, becoming a heartwrenching symbol of the plight of refugees fleeing war.

The International Organisation for Migration has said more than 430,000 migrants and refugees had crossed the Mediterranean to Europe so far in 2015, with 2,748 dying or going missing en route.

Sunday’s wreck was the latest in a catalog of drownings that underscored the desperation of thousands of refugees fleeing war and of migrants seeking better lives in Western Europe. For most of those who make it, Greece is just a stop on a journey through the Balkans aimed at wealthy nations like Germany and Scandinavian countries like Sweden known for generous welfare programs.

Tuesday 15 September 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/14/world/europe/greece-migrants-refugees-drown-in-agean.html?_r=0

http://news.yahoo.com/migrant-tragedy-off-greece-athens-dismisses-criticism-131745580.html

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Anthropology in action: Identifying missing migrants

A hairbrush. A bus ticket. A stuffed purple dinosaur. A container of Vaseline.

These are among the many items left in the desert by immigrants who attempt to cross into the U.S. from Mexico. And they are sometimes the best clues authorities have for identifying those who die traversing the rugged terrain.

In Arizona, an average of 170 men, women and children lose their lives crossing the U.S.-Mexico border every year. Because of harsh desert conditions, their bodies often are unrecognizable by the time they are found, making it nearly impossible to identify them and notify their families in Mexico.

Robin Reineke, a UA anthropology doctoral student, is committed to finding out who they are.

"Thousands of families are suffering without answers, and anthropologists have a duty to show up," she says. "These are vulnerable people from places traditionally studied by anthropologists, and they're losing their lives in the city where we live."

Reineke is executive director and co-founder of the Colibrí Center for Human Rights, a family advocacy organization that is working to end migrant deaths.

The center works with families and forensic scientists to collect missing person's reports and to identify those who die in the desert. The organization also works on policy reform, and partners with artists and storytellers to raise awareness of humanitarian issues on the border.

Reineke began her efforts in 2006, during her first year as a graduate student in the UA School of Anthropology. She was interested in how cultural anthropology could be applied in conjunction with forensic anthropology to help in a disaster or conflict.

Aware of the crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border, she reached out to forensic anthropologist Bruce Anderson in the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner.

Reineke was inspired by Anderson's efforts to identify the bodies of border crossers. It's not typically the job of a medical examiner's office to manage the missing person's side of an investigation, but because immigrants are not U.S. citizens — and therefore local law enforcement doesn't handle their cases — Anderson had taken it upon himself to help families identify their loved ones, using detailed physical descriptions and clues such as jewelry and other personal effects found with bodies.

"I was really motivated to work with him because I recognized him as someone with an intense moral compass," Reineke says. "In addition to having the highest caseload in the country of any forensic anthropologist, he was also taking down information from the family members who were calling his office directly looking for their relatives."

As the number of migrant deaths increased over the years, the job had become too big for one person, so after meeting with Reineke, Anderson enlisted her help. And thus the Missing Migrant Project was born.

Anderson had started the project with a three-ring binder of about 250 hard-copy missing person's reports that had been called in to the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner.

Over the next seven years, Reineke took hundreds more of those calls as the office's in-house missing persons family advocate.

"Robin's a special person, and her drive and intellect and passion for this makes her the best person for this job," says Anderson, a UA alumnus and adjunct assistant professor in the School of Anthropology.

Reineke began managing a digital database of missing migrant reports. As word got out, her caseload grew to a whopping 1,300, and the need for more help became clear.

In 2013, with support of more than $100,000 from the Ford Foundation, Reineke and William Masson, a UA Eller College of Management alumnus, co-founded the Colibrí Center for Human Rights to continue and expand upon the work of the Missing Migrant Project.

The word colibrí is Spanish for hummingbird, which is a common Mexican symbol of safe passage and a messenger between the living and the dead. The center's name was inspired by a man who died crossing the border in 2009; among his remains was a small, dead hummingbird carried in his pocket.

Today, anyone who calls the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner to report a missing migrant is routed through the nonprofit Colibrí Center, which operates two offices — one inside the medical examiner's office and one in downtown Tucson. There, staff, volunteers and interns from the UA Honors College process the information and see if they can make a match to data about unidentified remains produced by Anderson and others at the medical examiner's office.

Call frequency can range from as few as three a week to as many as 15 a day during peak summer months, when deaths in the desert are at their highest, Reineke says.

With so many people missing and often very few clues, making a positive identification is challenging, but when successful, it can help bring families closure, she says.

"Those notification calls are some of the hardest things any of us have ever done in our lives, but in general it's cathartic for the family," Reineke says. "There's a lot of crying, there's a lot of pain, but very often they also express gratitude. For someone to express gratitude when they are hearing such terrible news, you know that that experience of having a missing person must have been torture."

Reineke's work with Anderson on the Missing Migrant Project and with the Colibrí Center has attracted national and international attention from media outlets such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the BBC, among others.

The center now maintains the largest, most comprehensive database of missing migrants in the nation, and Reineke hopes to share the Colibrí Center knowledge and tools with other border communities.

"Part of what we're trying to do at Colibrí is take the knowledge and experience that we've gained working with the exceptional humanitarians and scientists here in Pima County and share that with smaller, less well-funded counties," she says.

For Reineke, the work is far more than just a job.

"There is a mass disaster occurring in our backyard," she says. "I feel very strongly that it's a moral obligation and duty to utilize my expertise and my training as an anthropologist to do the best I can for my fellow human beings who are living a nightmare very close to where I live."

Tuesday 15 September 2015

http://uanews.org/story/anthropology-in-action-identifying-missing-migrants

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13 more Trigana Air victims identified

Using DNA testing, Indonesia’s Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team has identified the bodies of 13 more victims from the Aug. 16 Trigana Air plane crash in Oksibil, Papua, Papua Police chief Insp. Gen. Paulus Waterpauw has said.

The team had already identified 27 victims through examining primary and secondary data at Bhayangkara Hospital in Papua’s capital Jayapura.

“Today the DVI team succeeded in identifying 13 more victims’ bodies at the National Police Headquarters’ laboratory through a series of DNA tests,” the Papua Police chief said.

He added that with the addition of the 13 newly identified bodies, the DVI team had now successfully identified 40 out of the 54 people on board the Trigana Air flight.The 13 bodies have now been handed over to victims’ families.

The bodies include two cabin-crew members, Mario Reso Bintoro and Ika Nugraeni Sukmaputri.“So, all cabin-crew victims have been found,” Insp. Gen. Paulus asserted.

Police have also identified all four bodies of the Jayapura post-office workers who were carrying Rp 6.5 billion (US$465,000) in cash on board for delivery to low-income residents of Pegunungan Bintang, Police Commissioner Ramon Amiman, head of medical affairs at Papua Police Headquarters, said.

“DNA identification takes time, but we will never ever give up on identifying all victims,” Ramon said.

Area manager for PT Trigana Air in Papua Bustoni Eka Prayitno said that of 27 identified bodies; the families of only 12 of them have received insurance coverage.“We hope [the remaining] relatives will complete the administrative requirements for making an insurance claim,” Bustoni said.

Tuesday 15 September 2015

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/09/14/13-more-trigana-air-victims-identified.html

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Death toll rises to 7 in rain disaster, 15 missing

The bodies of three men were found in inundated areas in Ibaraki and neighboring Tochigi prefectures on Sunday, bringing the total death toll from recent heavy rain and flooding to seven in the two prefectures and Miyagi Prefecture.

One of the bodies was discovered in a submerged minivehicle in the city of Tochigi in Tochigi Prefecture around 7:30 a.m. The Tochigi prefectural police department identified the man as Osamu Ogura, a 68-year-old nearby resident. He drowned, the police said.

The other two were found in Joso, Ibaraki Prefecture, which has been heavily damaged by floodwaters from the Kinugawa river after a levee of the river collapsed Thursday. The body of a 51-year-old man was detected in a rice paddy about one kilometer east of the breached levee around 11:45 a.m. Sunday, and that of Kanaya Kurita, 71, was found in a rice field about one kilometer southeast of the levee around 2 p.m.

In Joso, areas east of the Kinugawa river have been flooded, and nearly 4,000 people were rescued by Self-Defense Forces helicopters or boats, or by other means, in three days.

Still, 15 other people in the city remained unaccounted for. The Ibaraki prefectural police are working to confirm their whereabouts. A total of 1,880 firefighters, Self-Defense Forces troops and police officers searched flooded areas in the city on Sunday.

The inundated areas in Joso, which had peaked at about 40 square kilometers, shrank to about 15 square kilometers Sunday. But about 2,700 Joso citizens remained evacuated.

In a related move, Joso Mayor Toru Takasugi offered an apology Sunday for not issuing an evacuation order for residents in the city’s Kamimisaka district, which is near the broken Kinugawa river levee, before the breach.

Admitting his mistake, Takasugi said at a press conference: “I didn’t think the levee would collapse. I’m very sorry.” The Kamimisaka district was heavily damaged by the flooding of the Kinugawa river.

The levee breached around 12:50 p.m. Thursday. An evacuation order was issued at 1:08 p.m. for areas east of the Kinugawa river, including Kamimisaka, part of the Misaka area, while such an order was in place by 10:30 a.m. the same day for some other parts of the Misaka area.

Meanwhile, the Japan Meteorological Agency on Sunday issued a warning against heavy rain and thunder for some areas in Ibaraki Prefecture toward late Sunday night.

Flood damage could expand in areas around the swollen Kinugawa river. A flood warning has been issued in Joso and Chikusei, also in the prefecture.

Tuesday 15 August 2015.

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002421591

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