Mexico: Argentine Forensics Speak Out on Disappeared Women

The Argentine Forensic Anthropologist Team (EAAF), a civil organisation that has assisted with victim identification for massacres in several countries, has spoken out about its work on disappeared women in Ciudad Juarez. The EAAF, originally hired to conduct research in 2005, has been working to match the remains of missing women with collected DNA samples from more than 195 people who have reported the disappearance of relatives as far back as 1993. In response to the recent discovery of 50 unidentified remains that have been stored at a local morgue for more than a year, the EAAF has addressed the political failures to stem the chronic problem of disappearing women in Ciudad Juarez. In a report published in 2010, a special prosecutor in Ciudad Juarez listed 379 women murdered and 4,456 missing between 1993 and 2005. Figures from NGOs in the area, as well as from the EAAF, suggest that these numbers are in fact higher. “It was not...

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Guatemala: Mass Graves Excavated at Former Military Outpost

Guatemalan anthropologists are excavating mass graves at a former military outpost near Cobán, Alta Verapaz, searching for the remains of 200-300 people. The bodies are suspected to belong to people who were disappeared during the country’s internal armed conflict, which lasted from 1960 to 1996. The former outpost – Now a UN peacekeeper training centre – has five mass graves nearby, said the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala’s deputy director José Suasnavar. “In the fifth pit, which we are working on now, we have already found 14 skulls,” he said at a press conference earlier this week. A search warrant drawn by the First Court of High Risk allowed Attorneys of the Public Ministry (MP) and researchers at the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala to go to the site, and they have been working there since the 27th February. “It is very uncertain, determining the number of bodies that can be located in the former military...

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Colombia: Nine Bodies Recovered From Mine

Emergency services have recovered nine bodies from a coal mine in the Antioquía province in the northeast of Colombia. The miners had been trapped underground since Wednesday, when a local water deposit burst and flooded the mine. While there was hope some miners would survive, it was extinguished today when the last body was brought to surface at about 5am local time. “The rescue team recovered all nine dead bodies of the miners trapped in the coal mine El Desespero,” the government body for risk management reported. The cause of the accident at the El Desespero (Despair) mine is still unknown. The tragic event has sparked a dispute between local and national governments over the legality of the mine and whether it should have been operating at all. “This mine had been closed last June because it didn’t comply with the [safety] standards,” said Mauricio Cárdenas, the minister for energy and mining. “It was clearly an illegal activity.” Cárdenas...

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Mass funeral for victims of Congo blasts

BRAZZAVILLE – Thousands of people attended a memorial service on Sunday for the victims of last weekend’s munitions dump blasts in the Congo capital, as authorities announced a new death toll of 223. Medard Milandu, who conducted the service, said 159 of the bodies had so far been identified. An earlier toll said nearly 200 people were killed and more than 2 300 injured in the explosions, which destroyed hundreds of houses, leaving 14 000 people homeless. Relatives of the victims took their places in six white tents opposite a pavilion for officials erected on the esplanade outside the Congress Centre in the capital. The coffins of 145 victims arrived 10 at a time on lorry trailers shortly after 11h00. The coffins were draped in Congo’s green, yellow and red flag and adorned with wreaths. Family members, many in tears, clutched photos of their dead relatives and crosses bearing their date of birth and death on Sunday March 4. On the...

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Bangladesh ferry sinks with 200 people on board

A ferry packed with about 200 people has capsized in a river in southern Bangladesh, drowning 18 people and leaving dozens more missing, according to the authorities. Death toll expected to rise from...

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