One day Nigeria Police will halt mass burial of disaster victims

Biometrics is essentially the best forensic method used by the police and disaster management agencies to identify people or victims of disaster. They are uniquely based upon one or more intrinsic physical or behavioural traits. In Nigeria, disaster victim identification based on biometrics is not applied by the police detectives and failure to know the exact identity of victims has led to mass burials in so many instances. Inspector General of Police Ogbonna Onovo said during disaster victim identification training organised for the police by Germany in Abuja, that so many victims of disasters have been given mass burials as a result of lack of a method to trace their identities. “It is expected that after the training, there will not be any excuse for mass burial,” he said. In 2002, 56 unidentified victims of a plane crash in Kano were given a mass burial. Red Cross officials had stated that death toll had hit 148. The 56 victims, comprising...

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Kibwetere’s mass grave site becomes guest house

The house in which more than 150 bodies were discovered buried in a mass grave by followers of the self-styled cult leader, Joseph Kibwetere, 11 years ago, is under renovation to be turned into a commercial guest house. Residents of Rubirizi town council, Rubirizi district, where the house is located, have shunned it for all these years, fearing that ghosts would haunt them if they occupied it. Kakuru Byamugisha, the area Local Council II chairperson, told The Observer that no one has occupied the house since the police retrieved the decomposing bodies from it. Kibwetere, who was the leader of the shadowy ‘Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments’, duped hundreds of Ugandans into surrendering their possessions to his cult, and entering into a makeshift church in Kanungu in western Uganda, before they were locked inside and the church set ablaze. More than 500 cult members, including children, perished. In the days that followed,...

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Grave concerns over security laws in Kashmir

Two days into 2012, a student was killed and two more were injured in a village in North Kashmir when the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) guarding a hydroelectric plant opened fire on protesters, shattering a tenuous peace. In the recent past, (and most noticeably in 2010), students who have come out on to the streets chanting pro-freedom slogans – as part of a struggle for self determination whose roots go back further than Indian independence – have been fired upon and killed. This time, the protesters were merely demanding more electricity on an icy winter day during an acute power shortage. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was quick to declare that the CISF did not come under the ambit of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) – an extraordinary and draconian piece of security legislation – and sought to raise the pitch for partial revocation of the law. AFSPA was enacted in 1990, ostensibly to fight the insurgency and armed...

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Forgotten: The stolen people of the Sinai

Thousands of poor migrants from across Africa are being kidnapped by Bedouin gangs. Refugees from sub-Saharan Africa are being kidnapped, tortured and ransomed for thousands of dollars in the Egyptian Sinai in what human rights activists say is the world's forgotten hostage crisis. Over the past year, thousands of desperate migrants from Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia have been kidnapped by Bedouin tribesmen who are taking advantage of continuing instability in Egypt to ramp up their lucrative trade. Click Here to view 'Refugees on the move' graphic Migrants have reported being rounded up by gang members and held in specially constructed jails where they are frequently tortured until relatives in Europe or Africa come up with thousands of dollars. Testimony compiled by human rights groups reveals that torture with electric cables and molten plastic is routinely used against victims as they make desperate calls home to plead for cash. Many...

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Six US troops killed in Afghanistan chopper crash

(AFP) KANDAHAR — Six US troops were killed in a helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan, officials said Friday, indicating the incident was not believed to be the result of enemy fire. The helicopter, a CH-53 Sea Stallion, went down in the volatile Helmand province, according to one US official who said: "Initial indications are that this was not hostile fire." The dead were members of the US military, another US official told AFP. In a brief statement, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said the cause of the crash was under investigation. "However, initial reporting indicates there was no enemy activity in the area at the time of the crash," it said. The helicopter came down in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province at around 10:00 pm (0530 GMT) on Thursday "due to technical failure", the provincial Afghan army corps commander Sayed Mulook told AFP. Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Taliban militia, which is...

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Turkey - Deployment of disaster victims to containers has being promptly continued

With the purpose of providing convenient environment for disaster victims during the winter time, works has being intensely continued. On this framework, 27.598 containers have been ordered for manufacturing and 23.291 of them have been transferred and more than 18.000 have been deployed to affected area. As a priority, these containers have supplied for victims whose buildings are collapsed or uninhabitable. It is planned 180.000 disaster victims to be relocated to these container cities which have more capacities to shelter than the population of any other provinces in our country. 21 points in Van City Center and 4 points in Erciş District have been identified as container areas. Provided the disaster victims’ needs such as electric, water, heating, education, clothing, meals,three times a day in container cities established, it has been performed psycho-social support services. Within the framework of works to be relocated disaster...

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Padiham Cemetery's memorial revamp for East Lancashire's Dan-Air disaster victims

A MEMORIAL to 45 air-crash victims from East Lancashire has been revamped thanks to a town mayor. Lettering on the Padiham Cemetery monument to those who perished in the 1970 Dan-Air disaster had become indistinct. And relatives of those killed in the incident, which saw a jet crash into a mountain range near Barcelona, were keen to see the area overhauled. Now town mayor Coun Bob Clark has stepped in and arranged for a stonemason to retouch the inscription to the ill-fated passengers. Parks department staff have also revamped the small garden, where the memorial stands, in the Blackburn Road cemetery. All 112 people on board the plane were killed, including four players from the all-conquering Britannia Wanderers football team, based at the Guy Street pub of the same name. The victims also included holidaymakers from Burnley, Nelson, Barnoldswick, Worsthorne and Ramsbottom, which had set off from Manchester Airport. Coun Clark said:...

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The Mexico drug war: Bodies for billions

(CNN) -- There are kingpins with names like the Engineer, head-chopping hit men, dirty cops and double-dealing politicians. And, of course, there are users -- millions of them. But the Mexican drug war, at its core, is about two numbers: 48,000 and 39 billion. Over the past five years, nearly 48,000 people have been killed in suspected drug-related violence in Mexico, the country's federal attorney general announced this month. In the first three quarters of 2011, almost 13,000 people died. Cold and incomprehensible zeros, the death toll doesn't include the more than 5,000 people who have disappeared, according to Mexico's National Human Rights Commission. It doesn't account for the tens of thousands of children orphaned by the violence. The guilty live on both sides of the border. Street gangs with cartel ties are not only in Los Angeles and Dallas, but also in many smaller cities across the United States and much farther north of the...

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