Nigeria: Why Nigeria needs a national DNA databank

The need and importance of a national Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) databank for a rapidly growing nation like Nigeria cannot be overemphasized.

DNA databank has shown to be very useful in almost all spheres of life but particularly useful in the healthcare and security sectors.

A good example of the importance of a DNA databank is the 3rd June 2012 air disaster when Dana Airline plane crashed and killed 153 passengers. This incident, though it occurred over a year ago, the Medical practitioners in charge of identifying the badly burnt passengers for onward claim and burial rites by the families are still having a hard time carrying out this task because of the unavailability of a dedicated DNA databank of the citizens.

There were even embarrassing instances where 2 families of victims of the crash engaged in fist cuffs over a corpse which both parties claimed were theirs. This kind of situations would not even have come up if we had a sort of databank to provide such information in case of emergency.

Relating DNA to the unfortunate incident involving the Dana Airline, the Director General, National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Prof. Bamidele Solomon, said that the victims of the crash could have been easily identified if there was a DNA database of the victims.

He said this during a training workshop on the theoretical and practical courses on Basic Techniques in DNA Isolation, Manipulation and Application organised by NABDA in collaboration with the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), for Biotechnology and Forensic Scientists in Africa and beyond.

He noted that a DNA databank would have been a veritable tool for efficient and effective release of bodies of the victims of the plane crash.

He said: "DNA is a history book that can tell the origin of any species and it's unique to any individual so we can isolate every species even one on one, that is where the relevance of it comes into play in the case of our recent unfortunate incidence of plane crash; the DNA fingerprinting would have been a veritable tool in that particular occasion.

"It is important that we have a national databank of all the population in a place so in case of this issue, it's just once we get any piece we can just match it right away going back to the database.

"That is the reason why the agency is working with the National Defense Academy to ensure we develop forensic DNA finger printing technology in the country."

Highlighting the importance of a DNA databank with regards to maintain security and stability in the nation, the DG said forensic experts can use DNA to investigate crimes.

Bamidele said: "In developed countries, they do not have problems with fishing out questionable elements in the society because they have a relatively efficient and effective DNA databank which they match with suspects to decipher if they were guilty of a crime.

"It makes life easy for those on the job because it is even admissible in court and it can also be used to settle some health related issues like settling of paternal disputes."

The NABDA helmsman posited that DNA databank was so versatile and not only related to health or security but was also relevant in the agricultural sector.

He said that it was already common knowledge even among rural farmers that some species of cassava contained Cyanide which could become dangerous depending on the level of consumption.

"Even at the local level, we knew these species, so the issue now is for us to be able to have markers because there are markers that can help us know which one can produce cyanide.

"There are techniques now by which the Nitrogen that are being used to form cyanide may be channeled to produce even protein so you can have cassava that is now rich in protein instead of being rich in cyanide."

In her remarks, a doctor from the Trent University, Canada, Dr Cornelya Kleutsch, explained that DNA is the blueprint of all cells, the component in the human body that contains all the information.

She said that the essence of the training was to teach the trainees how to get and analyse DNAs from any kind of material such as hair, blood, stem cells.

She said the trainees would also learn how to isolate and analyse DNAs to establish basic understanding of species.

"It would help to establish a basic understanding of how to isolate DNA, how to analyse it and this will help in essence to establish a group of scientists that are able to help with forensic applications.

'If there has been a crime committed, they can use DNA analysis to find the person who did the crime.

"If you are interested in biotechnology and in agriculture, it will help to understand how we can yield better crops that yield more so that we then can battle things like hunger in the World.

The two weeks training had participants drawn from African and Asian countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Sudan, Tunisia, Tanzania, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Tuesday 13 August 2013

http://allafrica.com/stories/201308131210.html

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Georgian/Abkhazian war of 1992-1993: Burying son a ‘dream come true’ for mother

Engineering student Giorgi Popkhadze was 23 when war broke out in his home town of Sukhumi in 1992.

Like his fellow-students, neighbours and friends, Giorgi stayed in Sukhumi throughout the 1992-1993 conflict, as all the young men felt obliged to protect their families and their city.

In August 1993, when it became dangerous to stay in Sukhumi, Giorgi asked his mother and underage sister to leave.

Very reluctantly, Giorgi’s mother Mzevinar and her daughter allowed themselves to be evacuated to Poti, some 150 km south of Sukhumi along the Black Sea coast.

“Every day, my daughter and I used to go to the port, to meet the ships bringing people who had fled from Sukhumi.

“I hoped to see Giorgi among them. But days passed and I had no news about my boy.

“One day, I suddenly saw one of my neighbours who had just arrived in the port. She hugged me tightly with tears in her eyes and said ‘My condolences, Mzevinar!’

“That was how I learned that my Giorgi was no longer alive. He had been killed on the last day of the war, not far from our house.”

Mzevinar Popkhadze at the grave of her son Giorgi.Mzevinar Popkhadze at the grave of her son Giorgi.For almost 20 years, Mzevinar tried to visit her son’s grave.

She heard that neighbours had buried the bodies of brutally killed young men in the garden of their house.

Days of hope and expectation, endless efforts to “get him back” as Mzevinar put it, turned into two decades of ambiguity and disappointment.

“All that time, the thing I wanted most was to have my son’s grave here, so I could grieve for him properly,” explained Mzevinar.

“Can you imagine what it’s like when your dearest dream is to have your son’s grave near you?”

Coordination mechanism brings hope

The “Bipartite Coordination Mechanism for Clarifying the Fate of Persons Missing in Relation to the Armed Conflict of 1992-1993 and After” brings together Abkhazians and Georgians and was set up in 2010, under the aegis of the ICRC.

The first exhumations and identifications of human remains took place in Sukhumi 20 years after the conflict.

One set of remains was identified as being Giorgi.

The ICRC facilitated his transfer through checkpoints and administrative boundaries to his family, who could finally bury him in accordance with their religious traditions and customs.

Many people attended the funeral, including Mzevinar’s new neighbours, who had never met Giorgi. The local priest held a special service and Giorgi was buried in the family plot.

“For a mother who knew nothing about her son for over 20 years there can be no greater happiness,” said Mzevinar.

“I will continue to pray for the ICRC, because they made my dream come true.

“I have a grave for my Giorgi and I can go there every day.”

Tuesday 13 August 2013

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/features/article/georgia-burying-son-a-dream-come-true-for-mother

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Father erects statue for daughter missing since 2011 tsunami

Since Norio Kimura cannot be with his youngest daughter, who was swept away by the tsunami of March 11, 2011, he has erected a small stone deity on a hillside to watch over her and keep her company forever.

Yuna was a first-grader at elementary school and was 7 years old. She was washed away by the wall of waves near her home after she returned from school.

Yuna is one of the 208 people who remain unaccounted for in Fukushima Prefecture, two years and five months after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.

The image of the Jizo guardian deity of children was erected on July 31, ahead of the third Bon holiday season since the disaster.

It stands on a wooded hillside in a coastal area of Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, 3.5 kilometers south of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Kimura, 48, could not look for Yuna because he had to evacuate the following day due to the accident at the nuclear plant.

His wife, Miyuki, 37, and father, Wataro, 77, also went missing, but their bodies were later found.

Kimura is evacuating to Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture, with Mayu, Yuna’s elder sister, who is 12 years old.

He looked for Yuna along the coast and amid rubble when he was allowed to return to Okuma once every three months. The only belonging he found was one of Yuna’s shoes.

Kimura came up with the idea of erecting the Jizo statue about a year after the disaster.

He wanted Jizo to be with Yuna as a friend because she would feel lonely without anyone beside her. He hopes Jizo will keep a close eye on Yuna forever because he cannot stay with her.

One of his acquaintances had drawn a smiling Jizo on a message card to encourage him. Kimura asked a stonemason to create the image based on the drawing.

Kimura began preparations on the hill behind his former home in May when he was allowed to return to Okuma on his monthly visit.

He erected the image and memorial ahead of "Bon," in which people traditionally recognize ancestral souls, with help from his former neighbors in Okuma and acquaintances in Nagano Prefecture.

The memorial carries the names of Yuna, Miyuki and Wataro, as well as Kimura’s message for the three.

“I was grateful because everyone got together for Yuna and the others,” Kimura said.

The death toll from the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami totaled 15,883, and 2,656 people remain unaccounted for in six prefectures.

Police, the Japan Coast Guard and other relief workers have searched for bodies mainly on and around the 11th of every month. But only 102 bodies have been recovered since Sept. 11, 2011, with only four this year.

“We have looked almost everywhere we can on land, such as ditches and ponds,” a senior official of the Miyagi prefectural police said. “All we can do is to find a body washed ashore.”

Yuna is the only person who remains unaccounted for in Okuma. Kimura still looks for Yuna by himself on his monthly visit. He is grateful for the police efforts but has mixed feelings about the ongoing search.

“I wonder whether the search activities should continue amid high levels of radiation because it is becoming difficult to find her,” he said.

In the hardest-hit prefectures of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima, 2,652 people remain unaccounted for.

For most of them, bereaved families have filed death registrations. In Fukushima Prefecture, registrations have not been submitted for only five persons.

Yuna is among them. Kimura said he knows she will not return home anymore, but he still wants her to remain among the ranks of the living.

Tuesday 13 August 2013

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/life_and_death/AJ201308110036

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Death toll in Argentina gas explosion at 21; no more people missing and search called off

Rescue workers searching the rubble of an apartment building destroyed by a gas explosion last week in Rosario, Argentina’s third-largest city, on Monday found three more bodies, bringing the confirmed death toll to 21.

The first body found on Monday is that of an 86-year-old woman, municipal Health Secretary Leonardo Caruana said.

At the time, he said authorities would continue searching for two people still listed as missing in the wake of the powerful explosion last Tuesday that toppled the 10-story building and damaged two other structures in downtown Rosario.

Later in the afternoon, officials quoted by the state-run Telam news agency confirmed that two more as yet unidentified bodies had been found.

Local media outlets reported that the pair of bodies were found in the area near the ruined building’s elevators.

Their remains were taken to the Forensic Medical Institute, where authorities await further details in order to report the families and confirm both identities.

The explosion injured about 60 people and damaged the homes of 240 families who have not been able to return.

Investigators are focusing on the gas company employee who was working at the building before the blast and remains under arrest.

Litoral Gas, the Belgian-Argentine utility that serves the area, is also under investigation for having “very limited and primitive” controls in place, prosecutors said.

Tuesday 13 August 2013

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=939197&CategoryId=14093

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Four still missing at Kulda open cast mines

The rescue team on Monday did not recover more bodies from the coal heap of Kulda open cast mines in Sundargarh district. "We had made a list of missing persons from nearby villages and four among them are still untraceable," said ADM (Sundargarh) RabindraMishra. They have been identified as SurekhaNaik, MamataMajhi, Tilu Sane and SebatiDhandi, all residents of Balinga village, he added.

Locals claimed some drivers of dumpers and tippers, who were taking bath at the spot, could be buried in the coal heap. "We will continue the search operation till all the missing persons are found," said general manager of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (Basundhara coal mines) A K Singh. Ten bodies have been pulled out of the coal heaps in the last two days.

Seven bodies, however, had to be brought back to the district headquarters hospital morgue after villagers refused to cremate them, demanding Rs 25 lakh compensation and action against officials of MCL.

Sources said among the 10 bodies, eight were identified and handed over to their families on Saturday. While the victim of Kurla village was cremated, families of the other seven, belonging to Balinga village, staged a protest at Balinga police outpost. They also lodged an FIR against MCL officials, holding them responsible for the incident and demanded Rs 25 lakh compensation and jobs for the displaced.

Some villagers lead by Sundargarh Sadar MLA Jogesh Singh barged into the MCL office and forced the employees to stop all work. The production and coal dispatches at Basundhara coal mines had come to a halt after the incident on Saturday. Former BJP state president Jual Oram along with some villagers also staged a demonstration and blocked the road in front of Balinga police outpost, pressing for the demands of the locals.

"Since the administration was not in a position to fulfil their demands immediately, they left the bodies at the police outpost. We had no option but to bring them back to the morgue," the ADM said.

Tuesday 13 August 2013

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/Four-still-missing-at-Kulda-open-cast-mines/articleshow/21791910.cms

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One killed, 38 missing as Typhoon Labuyo hits Philippines

At least one person died and 38 others were declared missing as typhoon Labuyo (international name Utor) hit the northern part of the Philippines today.

The 22-year-old victim, named Joemar Salicon, died in a landslide in Benguet, a province in northern Luzon island. He was declared dead upon arrival at a local hospital, said National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council Executive Director Eduardo del Rosario.

Meanwhile, 13 fishermen, seven from Camarines Norte province and six from Pangasinan province, were reported missing, said Cordillera Regional Police Spokesman Davy Vicente Lim-mong.

Pangasinan provincial police spokesman Ryan Manongdo said 25 more fishermen, who aboard hree fishing boats, were missing in Infanta town. They failed to return home after going on fishing.

After Typhoon Labuyo made a landfall in Aurora province early this morning, it weakened its strength and left the country in the afternoon, according to Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa).

At least 244 families with 1,003 persons from Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog have been affected by the typhoon. They are staying at evacuation centers, said del Rosario.

About 8,927 passengers have been stranded in various ports in Bicol and Visayas areas as the authorities suspended sea travel due to the typhoon.

Monday 12 August 2013

http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/08/12/1083141/update-one-killed-38-missing-typhoon-labuyo-hits-philippines

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Auschwitz death march victims regain identities

In the Polish town of Miedzna, roughly 15 kilometers southwest of Auschwitz, is a mass grave containing the bodies of 42 camp inmates who were murdered during the death march in January 1945. The mass grave is in the local cemetery, near a large wooden church. Until last month, the victims’ identities were unknown. At the end of last month, in a special ceremony attended by a rabbi, a priest, town residents and a delegation from Israel, a new marker bearing the names of those victims who had been identified was placed over the grave.

The identification of the victims and the placing of the stone were made possible after months of research into the victims’ identities by Gil Paran, a guide for Israeli delegations to Poland. The research and the new grave marker were funded by the Israeli telecommunications company, Bezeq. “The victims went from being anonymous casualties to people with an identity and sometimes a face as well,” Paran said. Bogdan Tarnowski, the mayor, said during the ceremony that “the choice between good and evil, between light and darkness, is up to us alone and the Nazi period is a warning light for us about the abysses we must never reach again.”

The victims were part of a group of roughly 25,000 inmates from Birkenau and Auschwitz who were marched through the village on their way to the trains that took them to Germany, where the intention was to use them for the war effort. Forty-two of the victims set out on January 18, 1945 and were murdered that same day or the next at the latest. Their corpses were retrieved from the road and the forest by local residents, by order of the Germans. Thirty-nine of them were buried in the cemetery on January 19, and three more were buried later.

The commemoration of the names of death-march victims is part of a large-scale project that began several years ago. So far, the project has collected the names of victims from five sites along the death-march route. A different group of Israelis, including retirees from the Mossad, the Shin Bet, the Airports Authority and Bezeq, worked at each site. Yaki Ganz, who also works as a guide for delegations to Poland, got Bezeq on board, which made the new grave marker in the Miedzna cemetery possible.

Jozef Cieply, a survivor of the death march, wrote in his memoirs: “In the vicinity of Rajsko, not far from the camp, I noticed the hunched figure of a woman at the side of the road. It was the corpse of a prisoner, shot by SS guards. I saw the greatest number of corpses of shot prisoners between the localities of Miedzna and Cwiklice. One of our friends, who came from Poznan, counted 114 corpses. These were the bodies of those marching ahead of us. The corpses lay scattered on the road and we had to step around them. I remember that a German kapo tried to move a corpse that was lying at the side of the road, causing a delay. The entire contents of the skull, which evidently had been blown to bits by a gunshot, lay on the road. The sight was so shocking that the kapo gave up and left the corpse as it had been.” Another survivor, Oswald Gruszczyk, recalled: “We walked on the road, which was full of snow. Clogs, mugs and blankets fell onto the road. Ahead of us walked a group of women from Birkenau. After a walk of several hundred meters we saw, just a few meters away, bleeding corpses of women lying in the ditch.”

A resident of the town testified: “After I arrived at the police station, two wagons were waiting.... They collected inmates who had been murdered on their way from the bridge to the Miedzna junction. The second wagon collected bodies from the forest to the Miedzna junction. Together, 42 corpses were collected in both wagons. They were later buried in a mass grave in the cemetery.” Another resident testified: “Together with a few other men, we collected the bodies and they were buried in a mass grave.... The picture of the prisoners who were found shot in the forest is particularly etched in my memory. One woman prisoner survived for two freezing days after crawling into the forest, but she died during efforts to resuscitate her. She was buried with the other victims.” Paran says that “in almost every village, the inhabitants were summoned to collect the bodies, and they buried them in mass graves. Each village has its own story.”

In some places, the victims’ names were written down in the cemetery records, in the Germans’ documents or slips of paper. In this case, the victims were identified when an archived document was discovered. On January 19, 1945, the commander of the German police station in Miedzna reported the discovery of 39 bodies of the Auschwitz inmates — 29 women and ten men. Only 25 of them were identified by their prison number. “Others had no identifying marks,” the commander wrote.

When Paran began checking and cross-checking the numbers on the commander’s telegram, he found that most of the inmates buried there were Jews from Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands. Of the Jews buried in the mass grave, three men were identified by name. Of the Poles buried there, one woman and one man were identified by name. Another prisoner was identified by name as well, but his origin remains unknown. In addition, five inmates of Auschwitz whose inmate numbers are known are buried there, together with 17 other victims about whom nothing is known.



Among the victims who have now been identified: Sandor Wohl, 16, a Jewish teenager from Hungary, born May 12, 1928. He was deported to Auschwitz in August 1944.

Israel Hershson Kogen, 55, a Jewish man born in 1890 in Lublin, Poland, who worked as a waiter. He was deported to Auschwitz in 1941.

Zeiwel Giser, 33, of Poland, born December 1, 1912. He was deported to Auschwitz from the Grodno Ghetto on December 8, 1942.

Balbina Kruk, 53, of Poland. Born in 1882, she was deported from Warsaw to Auschwitz in 1944 after the Polish uprising.

Josef Jankowski, of Poland. He arrived at Auschwitz as part of a group deported there by the Gestapo in Lodz on August 3, 1943.

Monday 12 august 2013

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/.premium-1.540885

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For Delhi's destitutes, he is the last hope

In dark streets, every night, he appears as a beacon of hope to those left for dead. He takes drug overdose and accident victims to hospital and gives the dead the dignity of a decent end - all this simply because, once an addict himself, he knows what it is to be one of them.

Khushi Ram, 52, a resident of north Delhi's Mori Gate, repairs metallic shop shutters by day. But by night, he becomes a messiah and walks a 4-km radius that reports more than one-fifth of the total number of dead bodies recovered across Delhi annually.

As per Delhi Police records, he has taken 34 unclaimed dead bodies to the Bara Hindu Rao Hospital between April 2008 and October 2012. Eight more were wheeled in just in the nick of time.

"Though I don't have the papers to prove it, I've helped 60 people in four years," he says, "But there's a long way to go before I can say I've fulfilled the promise I made to my father."

On a winter night in 2005, Ram's father was livid after he found him vomiting in a drain with a needle in his arm.

"He told me he was ashamed of me - I wasn't the son he had. Those words made me turn my life around. I promised him I'd change and help clean the streets in whatever way I can."

After a year at a rehab centre, a different Khushi Ram returned to the streets. According to locals, he's a godsend.

"Given the staff crunch, whatever help we get from the public is invaluable. Sometimes, the only difference between a fresh accident victim and an unidentified dead body is a minute's delay. Khushi Ram has helped tilt that balance for the better at least half a dozen times," said an official from the local police station.

The state government's public grievances cell has also instructed the Delhi Police's vigilance department to help Khushi Ram in whatever way possible.

According to Delhi Police records, 1,808 dead bodies were found in different parts of the Capital till August 9 this year, with 374 of these being found in the north Delhi district. As many as 147 were discovered in the Kashmere Gate area.

Monday 12 August 2013

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/For-Delhi-s-destitutes-he-is-the-last-hope/Article1-1106769.aspx

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Rosario death toll rises to 18, three people remain missing

Rescuers working at the site of a major gas leak explosion which this week caused a building to collapse, found three more victims making the death toll reach 18. Three people were still missing, the Santa Fe province authorities informed today.

Rosario's Health Secretary Leonardo Caruana said two female bodies were found in the last hours and they were identified as 76-year-old Oclides Eraceli Ceresole, and 65-year-old Ana Rizzo.

Tuesday's tragedy left more than 60 people injured, 11 of them still hospitalized. Meanwhile, rescue workers continued a frantic search for the missing ones.

Monday 12 August 2013

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/138224/rosario-death-toll-rises-to-18-three-people-remain-missing

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Forensic anthropologist says he can identify unknown dead on USS Oklahoma

A forensic anthropologist is confident his research lab can identify hundreds of USS Oklahoma servicemen buried as unknowns in Hawaii. He just needs permission from the Department of Defense to do so.

John Byrd, director of the Central Identification Laboratory, became involved with the USS Oklahoma project in 2003 when Pearl Harbor survivor Ray Emory showed the lab critical information about the nearly 400 remains.

More than 600 U.S. servicemen killed during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor are buried as unknowns in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Roughly two-thirds of these belong to the USS Oklahoma. The commingled, unidentified remains may not be as unknown as they appear, Emory claimed.

Unknown graves

Emory, now 92, first visited the cemetery in Honolulu more than 20 years ago to honor those killed at Pearl Harbor. Dubbed the Punchbowl for resembling the serving dish, the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific is tucked away within a volcanic crater. The burial ground is home to 34,000 military veterans.

Emory expected to find an organized area dedicated to the hundreds of servicemen who lost their lives in the battle.

Instead he found nothing.

After failing to locate them himself, Emory, who was stationed on the USS Honolulu in 1941, asked the caretaker where he could find the Pearl Harbor graves. The answer horrified him. They were spread all over the area, the caretaker told him.

The graves were listed only as “unknown,” making it impossible for visitors to distinguish which grave held remains from which ship or from which war.

Emory scoured through Army and Navy records, finding whatever information he could about the burials.

The results were startling.

In 1950, 61 caskets carrying the remains of about 400 unknowns from the USS Oklahoma were buried in the Punchbowl.

He dug further and discovered a deceased personnel file listing the names of 27 servicemen from the ship whose remains were believed to be identified in 1949. An anthropologist didn't approve the identifications, however, and the remains were buried with the rest.

For more than a decade, Emory tried convincing officials to exhume these remains so they could be re-identified and returned to their families. He won a small victory after officials finally relented and added the ship names to the grave markers.

In 2003, he caught a bigger break.

Identification difficult

The Central Identification Laboratory is run by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, a Department of Defense task force charged with accounting for all Americans listed as prisoners of war and missing in action. Byrd and other representatives sat down with Emory and found his information credible.

The scientists decided to unbury a casket believed to be holding the remains of five of the 27 servicemen. They found what they were looking for, but not what they expected.

“What we thought we were going to find were discrete sets of remains packaged in the normal nurturing manner,” Byrd said. “Instead, what we found was that all of the remains of the sailors were commingled.”

Along with the scrambled remains of the five sailors, the team found bones belonging to about 100 servicemen.

The Central Identification Laboratory eventually identified the five sailors, and the remains were delivered to their families. USS Oklahoma Fireman 3rd Class Alfred Livingston's body was pulled out of the ocean and was believed to have belonged to the USS Arizona. He was identified in 2007.

The identifications will end there, however, if the laboratory is not permitted to recover the rest of the buried remains.

After a series of failures in the late 1940s, researchers realized they could not identify individual sailors with the technology they had, he said. The order was given to separate the remains according to parts — such as legs, arms and heads — and then bury them in 61 caskets in the Punchbowl.

“That's a very unusual thing to do, and I don't know of any other cases where they've done that from that era,” Byrd said.

Technology has drastically improved since the '40s, but the segregated bones make it impossible for Byrd's team to identify the other remains from the casket without the rest.

He said the Central Identification laboratory has applied to recover the 60 remaining caskets from the Punchbowl, and he's still waiting for an answer.

Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Sarah Flaherty told The Oklahoman the Department of Defense initiated a working group to examine the challenges and issues associated with recovering the remains. It is unknown how long it will take to reach a decision, she said.

While the working group convenes, the Department of Navy is seeking support to conduct a memorial and burial ceremony for the remains currently held by the laboratory. If approved, the ceremony would be Dec. 7, 2014, at the USS Oklahoma Memorial on Ford Island.

“The consideration for us for having the ceremony is that people who are survivors of the USS Oklahoma are not getting any younger,” Flaherty said. “The memorial ceremony ... offers temporary closure and a cogent place for survivors to treat as a final resting place in the interim.”

She said the ceremony would not hinder identification efforts if the working group approves the project to retrieve the buried caskets. The Central Identification Laboratory has already collected the needed DNA from the remains in its possession.

“There's nothing else that can be pulled,” Flaherty said. “That doesn't mean that identities have been recovered, but the information has been pulled from those remains.”

Closure for comrades

If the request to disentomb the 400 remains is approved, the outcome would be significant, Byrd said.

“We don't want to be overly optimistic, and we don't want to build unrealistic expectations, so we hedge a little bit when we think we can identify at least three quarters of them,” he said. “Maybe more.”

Byrd estimates these results would take about five years to be reached.

After two decades of arguing with officials, Emory has accepted he may not live to see closure for his comrades. But he doesn't keep fighting for himself. He does it for the families of the unidentified servicemen whom he believes have been neglected by the government.

“I'm 92, so I'll be dead before they get a lot of this done, but I just keep going along and doing my own thing,” he said. “And maybe someday something will happen, something will get done. But there's nothing I can do except maybe scream at some congressman or senator and say, ‘Hey. What do you intend for these people to do?'”

Monday 12 August 2013

http://m.newsok.com/forensic-anthropologist-says-he-can-identify-unknown-dead-on-uss-oklahoma/article/3868823

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Six Egyptian migrants drown on 20-metre swim from boat to Sicily beach

Italy was shaken over the weekend by the deaths of six young Egyptians who drowned while trying to swim 20 metres from a wooden fishing boat to the shore, and whose bodies were laid out in bags beside sun umbrellas on a popular Sicilian beach.

The prosecutor of Catania, Sicily's second city, opened an investigation after the boat, which had been carrying more than 100 migrants from Egypt and Syria, ran aground on a sandbar near the Lido Verde resort.

Roberto D'Arrigo, a spokesman for the Catania coast guard, told the Guardian that some of the passengers had jumped into the water to try to swim to safety, while others had remained on board.

Among the 98 survivors were about 50 minors, many of them small children, he said.

It was suspected that the six men who died, and who were identified on Sunday as Egyptians between 17 and 27 years old, may not have known how to swim. The Ansa news agency reported that the youngest was to have turned 18 this month.

According to the UN, about 8,400 migrants and asylum seekers landed on the coasts of Italy and Malta during the first six months of this year, many of them from Egypt, Syria and countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

It is rare, however, for boats to approach populated shorelines near Italian cities, and investigators were reported as saying they thought the vessel may have taken a wrong turn. At about the same time as the migrants arrived, so too did three large cruise ships carrying some 12,500 tourists keen to view Mount Etna from the port.

Police have arrested two Egyptians, aged 16 and 17, on suspicion of assisting illegal immigration, but are said to fear that the smugglers may have managed to flee from the boat.

The Catania prosecutor, Giovanni Salvi, is looking into possible charges of multiple manslaughter in relation to the disaster. He told the Catholic newspaper L'Avvenire that the fishing boat may have been towed most of the way by a larger ship and said he suspected links to an "organised network".

Separate investigations had already indicated that local crime organisations were involved in the people smuggling, he said.

D'Arrigo said coastguards had launched an emergency rescue attempt after receiving an alert via the police from the Lido Verde's owner, who had heard cries coming from the beach.

Rescuers transported those still on the boat back to land and pulled others out of the water, he added.

The resort's beach was closed after the deaths, and Catania's city council called a day of mourning for Wednesday, when the funerals may be held.

Speaking on Italian radio on Sunday, Italy's foreign minister, Emma Bonino, said there was no miracle solution to a phenomenon which often leads to fatalities off the country's coastline. At the end of last month, 31 people were feared to have died while trying to reach the island of Lampedusa, the destination for most migrants and asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East.

"Whether it be a dream or illusion, these people risk ending up in the hands of real merchants of illusions or death," said Bonino.

"But we're talking about people who are fleeing because of hunger or war or a mixture of the two, and therefore there is no miracle solution."

Her words were echoed in the testimony of a survivor in Catania, who said he had decided to leave Syria because he was unable to finish his exams. Yahia Khaddam, 19, told La Repubblica he had paid $1,500 (£1,290) for the journey, which he felt he had no choice but to make.

"Either you fight or your flee," he was quoted as saying. "I had to risk death in order to live. I accepted the risk. I paid, and I'm alive."

Monday 12 august 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/11/egyptian-migrants-drown-sicily-resort

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Six killed after Indonesian volcano eruption, search on for children's bodies

Hot lava from an erupting volcano killed six people sleeping in a beach village on a small island in eastern Indonesia on Saturday, after ash and smoke from the volcano shot about a mile into the air, officials said.

Mount Rokatenda in East Nusa Tenggara province erupted early Saturday morning, and nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated from the area on Palue island, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. The volcano has been rumbling since October.

The victims who died included three adults and two children, said agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, adding that the age of the sixth person killed was unclear. He said that the adults’ bodies were recovered from Ponge beach in Rokirole village, but that the children’s remains had not been found.

Officials continued searching Sunday for the bodies of two children buried by the hot lava as rumbling could still be heard from Mount Rokatenda on the small island of Palue in East Nusa Tenggara province.

Nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated from the area since the volcano erupted early Saturday morning, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. The volcano had been active since last October.

Tini Thadeus, head of the local disaster agency, said the six victims, who died while sleeping in a beachside village, were among those who had refused to leave last year when evacuations were carried out to establish a safety zone around the volcano.

"On their belief, if all the old villagers abandoned the red (danger) zone, then lava will destroy the residential area," Thadeus said from Kupang, the provincial capital. Among the dead was a 58-year-old woman, the grandmother of the two children who also died.

"But unfortunately, not like in the past, lava from Saturday's eruption flowed northward and hit them," Thadeus said, adding that during earlier eruptions since the 1930s, volcanic material had always flowed southward.

Thadeus said he was not optimistic about recovering the children's bodies since they were buried under hot volcanic material.

He said small explosions could still be heard coming from the peak, which was still spewing smoke up to 600 meters (656 yards) into the sky.

"But all of the villagers have been evacuated out of the danger zone" near the crater, he said.

Video footage on Indonesia’s TVOne showed giant plumes of white and gray smoke and ash belching from the volcano into a sunny blue sky. Prior to Saturday’s eruption, many residents had already been moved to safer areas.

The disaster agency said the volcano spewed ash and smoke about 2km into the air. The eruption lasted about seven minutes, said Frans Wangge, who heads the volcano’s monitoring post.

He said the hot lava burned trees around the beach and villages, and made it difficult to reach the area where the victims were killed.

Domi Dange, a Catholic priest helping those who fled to the district town of Maumere on nearby Flores island, said some residents, who had refused to leave when the area was earlier cleared, were sleeping under tents near the beach. However, details about the six people who were killed and where they were located at the time of the eruption remained unclear.

Local authorities, including police and army officials along with members of a search and rescue agency, were heading to tiny Palue island to help with evacuations.

“We will see the best steps to be taken, but clearly they have to be evacuated,” said Yoseph Ansar Rara, chief of Sikka District, which oversees the island. He said those already evacuated had agreed to be relocated to Flores island.

Mount Rokatenda is one of about 129 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands that’s home to some 240m people.

The country is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of fault lines.

Monday 12 August 2013

http://www.irishexaminer.com/world/indonesian-volcano-erupts-killing-six-239535.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57598009/search-on-for-childrens-bodies-after-indonesian-volcano-eruption/

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18 dead in Alexandria traffic pile-up

Eighteen people were killed and three injured on Sunday in a major traffic pile-up in Egypt's Mediterranean city of Alexandria. The accident, which involved five vehicles, took place on the international road to the west of the city, Amr Nasr, head of Alexandria's ambulance service, told Anadolu Agency.

According to Nasr, most of the fatalities died on the spot.

Ibrahim al-Roubi, head of the emergency department, said the three passengers who survived the accident had all sustained serious injuries.

Deadly traffic accidents are common in Egypt due to poor road maintenance and lax supervision and law enforcement by local transportation bodies.

Monday 12 August 2013

http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=114959

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One more body found under coal heap debris in Sundargarh

The death toll in the Sundargarh coal mine tragedy rose to 10 with the recovery of one more body on Sunday morning. Later in the day, hundreds of agiatated villagers gheraoed the Balinga police outpost with four bodies.

As family members of missing persons and local villagers waited anxiously near the mishap spot at Kulda-Basundhara open cast coal mines of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), around 150 km from here, agitated locals marched to the Balinga police outpost and demanded compensation of Rs 25 lakh to the family of each deceased and a permanent job to the victim's family.

The incident took place when some people from nearby villages were collecting coal from the overburdened dump yard located near the mining area, an MCL spokesman said.

Some of them were buried when a portion of the coal dump suddenly collapsed, probably due to heavy rains that lashed the area yesterday, he said, adding search and rescue operation was immediately launched at the site.

Like the previous day, heavy downpour interrupted rescue operations for about an hour on Sunday. But people converged at the site in large numbers expecting recovery of their kin from the coal overburden, which collapsed on Saturday when around 30 locals were collecting remnant coal.

While the confirmed death toll stood at 10, more bodies are feared to be lying below the debris. MCL sources said 60 per cent of the debris had been removed. Rescue operations, which were stopped during the night after recovery of nine bodies, resumed around 10 am. One body was recovered by evening. "Since it is a large patch about 40 to 50-metre long, the operation is taking time," said general manager, Basundhara coal mines, A K Singh.

Four excavators were pressed into service. We have called for one more to expedite operations," he added.

Those dead were identified as Mukteswar Kumar (27), Gurubari Majhi (55), Bhagabati Majhi (50), Sumanta Kharsel (35), Dulari Bhoi (55), Rajesh Dhandi (15), Raimal Seth (50) (all natives of Balinga village), Sukesh Satpathy (29) of Kurla village under Bhasma police station and Deepak Nayak (50) of Gomadera under Belpahar police station of Jharsuguda district. "We have handed over the bodies to the family members after proper identification and post mortem," said SP (Sundargarh) Sanjeev Arora.

Locals accused MCL of ignoring development work under periphery development scheme and demanded improvement of roads and other infrastructure. "The locals are in an agitated mood and might lodge an FIR against senior MCL officials alleging that the company was responsible for the mishap," said a police officer.

Political leaders made a beeline to the mishap spot and met the victims' families. Sundargarh MP Hemananda Biswal and Sundargarh Sadar MLA Jogesh Singh, both from Congress, had visited the spot on Saturday. Commerce and transport minister Subrat Tarai, who represents Raghunathpalli in Sundaragrh, went to the area on Sunday and discussed details of the rescue operation with officials.

Monday 12 August 2013

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/One-more-body-found-under-coal-heap-debris/articleshow/21771053.cms

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More than 20 missing, 9 bodies recovered after boat capsize near Wardha

More than 20 people, mostly labourers, are missing and nine bodies have been recovered so far after a boat was smashed into two pieces when it hit a Hanuman statue installed in the middle of Vana river near Wardha on Thursday evening.

Nearly 35 to 40 labourers were saved from drowing and rescue efforts are on.

The labourers from Hingan Ghat had travelled by boat to Kalhapur-Dabha village for daily work and returning home in the evening when the mishap took place at around 5:30 pm.

Volunteers of Bhoi Samaj jumped into the river and saved most of the labourers from drowning.

More than 10 persons have been admitted to the local hospital for treatment. The boat was said to be 15 years old.

Friday 9 August 2013

http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/more-than-missing-bodies-recovered-after-boat-capsize-near-wardha-26122.html

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How Kenyan hospitals abet the illicit body parts trade

Kenyan hospitals are reluctant to adopt technology to identify unclaimed bodies thereby giving room for illicit body parts business to thrive, industry sources say.

Adopting modern biometric system on patients when they are admitted to hospital would be helpful in the identification process.

A source at Kenyatta National Hospital says his supervisors have been frustrating efforts to adopt technology to boost identification process.

Unidentified group

“My bosses have been fighting the use of fingerprint technology which helps in identification. This has helped make it much easier to have more bodies placed in the unidentified group which are later marked for disposal through city mortuary,” said the source at KNH mortuary.

“Action on the bodies begins once a body is piled in the ready-for-disposal group. It’s like a licence to tamper with the remains,” he said.

KNH had not officially responded to our inquiries on the process they follow in reducing unidentified bodies, most of which become targets of the deadly trade.

“There is a recent case where someone wanted a tooth as an exhibit in a court case. This is simple, all you need is just pluck it from the bodies lined up for disposal and give it to him. He paid Sh5,000,” the attendant told The Standard.

KNH public wing was handling about 900 bodies at the time of this investigation. It has a capacity to hold 300 bodies.

Best practice also demands that before disposal, bodies should be wrapped in a special bag so that they can be retrieved in future.

But in Kenya, most are buried in mass graves and unless a DNA test is conducted, it is increasingly getting difficult to trace and retrieve bodies when need arises.

Funeral Services Association of Kenya (FUSAK) is now calling for adoption of fingerprinting and videotaping technology to help in documentation and reducing the number of unknown people.

There is also need for regulation on how new institutions offering medical studies get their cadavers for learning purposes.

Though most bodies are acquired free of charge, some institutions are trading the bodies.

“They fetch about Sh75,000. This is the price we were selling them to Kenyatta University when they began their medical training school. Though they are not supposed to be sold, there are other costs such as embalming and storage that make it necessary that someone pays for them,” said Mr Ezra Olack, the national chairman of FUSAK.

Keeping brains for medical students is a most common practice. This is done most of the time even without the consent of relatives.

“They are placed in paper bags. Sometimes even briefcases are used to smuggle them out,” he says.

Water that’s been used to wash the dead is also regarded as a hot cake.

Several beliefs

“There are several beliefs about water used to wash the dead ranging from boosting business prospects to snagging husbands. This is one of the most demanded things,” an attendant at City Mortuary said.

“There was a time when a lady wanted to get someone’s husband. So she came for the water. I don’t know most of the details but when the man asked to bathe, the lady is said to have mixed the water with the one collected here and the man went berserk,” he chuckles.

It is understood that the disciplined forces demand for blood of the dead, mostly when one has died in mysterious circumstances.

Friday 9 August 2013

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000090136&story_title=how-hospitals-abet-the-illicit-body-parts-trade

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Argentine rescuers find cat, three more bodies located

A cat was pulled alive from the ruins of an apartment building that collapsed in a huge gas explosion, but with 11 people still missing, hundreds of rescuers tried without success Thursday to find more human victims.

Authorities identified 10 of the dead, and by late Thursday rescuers were working to pull three out more bodies they had located in the rubble.

More than 60 people were injured as Tuesday's blast rocked Rosario, Argentina's third-largest city, and several remained in critical condition.

"Until we remove the last brick, we'll always expect to find people alive," federal police commissioner Angel Poidomani, leading one of the rescue teams, told Rosario's La Capital newspaper Thursday morning. But by late evening, he seemed less optimistic.

"We're working on three bodies in different places of the building. The extractions are difficult because of the kind of collapse, which requires a great deal of caution in the removal of the rubble," Poidomani said. "We're working with dogs and cameras to reach different places, but we still haven't found any more signs of life."

With damaged towers on both sides of the rubble pile in danger of collapsing on the rescuers, police and firefighters were working as carefully as possible, following the scents of the body-sniffing dogs and clues from a fiber-optic cable that captures sounds and movement.

Engineers were figuring out how to reinforce fire-damaged columns, and some heavy equipment finally got access to the pile.

Poidomani compared it to surgery. "These are nine floors of a building that ended up compacted, 5 or 6 meters high. Reaching the center of this heap is very difficult," he said.

Politicians nationwide canceled Thursday's closing campaign rallies ahead of Sunday's primary elections after President Cristina Fernandez, who visited the disaster site Wednesday, called for two days of mourning nationwide. Anti-government marches went on as planned Thursday night, with fewer people joining in than during previous protests.

Two repairmen are in custody as a judge probes possible criminal negligence. Residents had asked for a valve to be replaced after complaining to the Litoral Gas company that despite a previous repair days earlier, natural gas wasn't reaching their kitchens.

But the company said it wasn't advised before Tuesday's follow-up repair job, which involved replacing a valve, and wasn't asked to turn off the gas beforehand.

Friday 9 August 2013

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/08/08/5066328/argentine-rescuers-find-cat-11.html#storylink=cpy

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Rosario explosion: rescue works continue, 11 people still missing

Rescue teams continue with rubble removal works coming closer to the site of the explosion, Rosario city Mayor Mónica Fein confirmed two-days after disaster struck at the Santa Fe province locality resulting in at least 12 people dead and 11 still missing.

“We have not found major structural damages and in most cases neighbors asked us to focus on the building works; we are very grateful,” Fein told reporters as she went over the accident site at 2000 Salta Street in downtown Rosario where a gas leak caused a major explosion and collapse of a 10-storey building early on Tuesday.

Gas technician repairman Carlos Osvaldo García and his assistant who were trying to repair the building’s gas system were detained for questioning in connection with the explosion.

Around 25 teams of catastrophe and rescue experts continue to work on the disaster area with main focus on the search for missing people as well as on safety issues to determine impacts and risk of collapse in nearby buildings also hit by the explosion.

Meanwhile, the national government announced a two-day national mourning with President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner visiting the victims of the worst tragedy in Rosario's recent history on Wednesday.

Thursday 8 august 2013

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/137986/rosario-explosion-rescue-works-continue-11-people-still-missing-

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Vietnam war victims missing for 40 years found alive in jungle, central Vietnam

An 82-year-old man and his 41-year-old son have been found living in a forest in central Vietnam after they went missing during the country's war with the US, an official says.

The older man could communicate a little in the Cor ethnic minority language, but his son only knew a few words, an official at Tay Tra commune in Quang Ngai province said on Thursday on condition of anonymity.

Ho Van Thanh was last seen running into the woods with his then-infant son Ho Van Lang after a bomb exploded in his home, killing his wife and two other children in 1973, newspaper Dan Tri reported.

They were discovered when two people from a nearby village ventured 40 kilometres into the forest looking for firewood and spotted the two men's tree house. The villagers reported the find to local authorities who recovered the pair on Wednesday.


The two men survived by cultivating forest vegetables and hunting animals. They had no contact with the outside world, the report said.

Photographs in local media showed the younger man with dishevelled hair wearing a loin cloth made from tree bark.

Thanh, who was fighting for North Vietnam when the bomb exploded, left behind another son, Ho Van Tri.

"My father is very weak and the doctors are taking care of him, but my brother's health is fine even though he looks very thin," said Tri, who was six months old when his father fled into the jungle.

Thanh is being treated at a medical centre while his son is being looked after by his nephew, Ho Ven Bien.

"My uncle doesn't understand much of what is said to him, and he doesn't want to eat or even drink water," Bien said.

"He's very sad. He doesn't say anything now," he said. "We know he wants to escape my house to go back to the forest so we have to keep an eye on him now."

Hoang Anh Ngoc, chairman of the district, said local authorities had visited Thanh at the medical centre and given him food.

"I asked officials to keep a close eye on the two men to make sure they don't escape back into the forest," he said.

The discovery has shaken the small community, which thought the two men dead.

"No one could imagine Thanh and his son could live 40 years in isolation in the hard conditions of the jungle," said villager Ho Van Xanh.

Thursday 8 August 2013

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/vietnam-war-victims-found-in-jungle/story-fn3dxix6-1226693737409

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Florida: Exhumations approved at Reform School where boys disappeared

The Florida Cabinet gave the go-ahead Tuesday for dozens of unmarked graves, buried deep in the woods near a now-defunct reform school, to be exhumed, in an attempt to return the bodies to their families.

Gov. Rick Scott along with the rest of the Florida Cabinet voted to allow University of South Florida researchers to begin exhumation at the site of the former Dozier School for Boys in the panhandle city of Marianna.

"It's a relief. The real work has yet to begin, but now we can now move forward," said Erin Kimmerle, a University of South Florida anthropologist who is leading the effort. "We will go slow and test our methods and really be able to make progress when it dries off."

Many of the families were present in Tallahassee at the Cabinet meeting. Attorney General Pam Bondi voted in favor of the effort.

"From the beginning, I have supported efforts at the Dozier School for Boys in order to provide family members who lost loved ones with closure," she said in a written statement.

The small cemetery dates back to the early 1900s. For years, former inmates say children who were sent to the reform school were beaten and mysteriously disappeared.

Rusting white steel crosses mark the graves of 31 unidentified former students. Using ground-penetrating radar, Kimmerle's team have located what she says appears to be 18 more remains than previously thought. All are unidentified.

State and school records show that out of nearly 100 children who died while at the school, there are no burial records for 22 of them, Kimmerle said.

"This decision puts us a step closer to finishing the investigation," said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida. "Nothing can bring these boys back, but I'm hopeful that their families will now get the closure they deserve."

Only 10 families have been identified as having descendants who are buried here. Many are seeking to claim the bodies of their loved ones so they can be buried properly in family cemeteries. DNA has already been collected from many of them.

Glenn Varnadoe says his father, Hubert Varnadoe, and Hubert's brother, Thomas Varnadoe, were sent to Dozier for stealing. A month later, administrators allegedly woke up Hubert Varnadoe and took him to a place in the woods where men had just buried Thomas Varnadoe.

The cause of death was listed as pneumonia. Glenn Varnadoe wants his uncle's body found so his uncle can be buried properly.

"I think this is a banner day for every kid who ever went through Dozier, for the kids who are dead, buried and forgotten," he told CNN. "They will finally be remembered and given a proper burial and finally respected as human beings."

Former students said the deaths were at the hands of abusive administrators, but a 2009 state investigation determined there was no evidence of criminal activity.

In the wake of that investigation, more former students -- now senior citizens -- have come forward with stories of abuse, including alleged beatings, killings and the disappearance of students,during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

"These are children who came here and died, for one reason or another, and have just been lost in the woods," Kimmerle said in an interview earlier this year. "When there's no knowledge and no information, then people will speculate and rumors will persist or questions remain."

Kimmerle, who worked on an international forensics team that amassed evidence used in Yugoslavian war crimes trials, called the Florida project a humanitarian effort for the families of the former students and for the community.

Many wonder if the tales of beating and murder are true or if anyone can be charged with any crimes.

Glenn Hess, the state attorney for Jackson County, Florida, where Marianna is located, said, "From a prosecutor's point of view, these things happened so far in the past, the probability that they're going to be able to put a probable cause with a homicide with a probable cause that somebody did it, are probably remote."

Researchers are hoping to begin the exhumation process later this month. It will be a tedious scientific process which the families hope, may one day, answer the mysteries of what really happened at Marianna.

Thursday 8 August 2013

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/06/us/florida-reform-school-exhumations/index.html

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