Poland exhumes some 2010 plane crash victims

WARSAW, Poland — One autopsy report describes organs that had been removed years before. Another adds 20 centimeters (nearly 8 inches) to a short man, making no mention of bones disfigured by childhood polio. One family doubts whether an autopsy was performed at all. Polish investigators have exhumed the remains of three of the 96 Poles killed in the 2010 plane crash in Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski due to flaws in the initial autopsies performed by Russian officials. The need for the new autopsies has added to suspicions held by some Poles that the Russians were, at best, sloppy in their handling of the crash aftermath, and, at worst, trying to cover something up. Russian authorities say any inaccuracies result from the fragmented state of the bodies after the crash. Two of the 96 bodies were exhumed this week in Poland, following a first such exhumation August. Victims' families and officials say other victims also have...

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Victims in Mexico mass graves could be ID'd with new software from Spain

MIERES, SPAIN -- A new tool developed in Spain may help authorities in Mexico identify hundreds of human skeletal remains suspected of being the victims of organized crime. The European Centre of Soft Computing, based in Mieres, plans to send its new software Skull2Face later this year to several states in northern Mexico and other countries. "We have been in talks with officials of Chihuahua state about the possibility of using this software to help them identify the skeletal remains of men and women," said Sergio Damas, one of the principal researchers of the software developed by the center and the University of Granada. "Officials from other states in Mexico also are interested in acquiring five to 10 sets of the software system." The price for the software has not been determined. Earlier in March, 25 experts from around the world met in Mieres to learn more about Skull2Face software, which its creators say will revolutionize forensic...

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Chixoy Dam-Rio Negro Massacres: Justice Delayed 30 years and Counting

As part of an all night Mayan ceremony (March 13-14, 2012), a Mayan priest reads off, page after page, the names of each and every one of the close to 450 Mayan Achi children, women and men from the remote village of Rio Negro, victims of the 1982 "Rio Negro massacres." Along with a delegation of Americans and Canadians, I have come here to spend the night and participate in commemoration activities on the 30th anniversary of the March 13, 1982 massacre of 177 children and women, this being the second of four large scale massacres in 1982 carried out in conjunction with the Chixoy Dam "development" project. PROFITS & IMPUNITY FOR THE WORLD BANK & INTER-AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK From 1975-1985, the World Bank (WB) and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) spear-headed this "development" project, investing 100s of millions of dollars into the Guatemalan military regimes of those years. The 1982 Rio Negro massacres (February 12,...

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Srebrenica: Three More Bodies Found

The Bosnian Institute for Missing Persons recovered the remains of three war victims from a mass grave near the village of Suceska, in Srebrenica municipality. According to information from the Institute for Missing Persons, the remains are probably those of men killed in July 1995 in Srebrenica. The remains were transported to the Commemorative Center in Tuzla for analysis and identification. On the same day, the remains of another victim were found near Sanski Most in northwestern Bosnia. The Bosnian state prosecution, which has national responsibility for exhumations, said that the remains would be sent to the Sejkovaca mortuary for identification. Representatives of the Institute for Missing Persons and police officers from both Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina participated in the exhumations in Srebrenica and Sanski Most. According to available information, at the end of the conflict in Bosnia an...

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Mexicans criticised for removing bones from archaeological site

San Cristobal de Las Casas (Mexico), March 15 (IANS/EFE) Mexican authorities’ decision to remove human skeletons from an archaeological site in the southern state of Chiapas resulted in the loss of “invaluable” anthropological information, experts said. “We obviously understand the haste, the importance given (to the find by) the state Attorney General’s Office considering the fight against drug trafficking,” Emiliano Gallaga, who represents the National Institute of Anthropology and History, or INAH, in Chiapas, told EFE. Chiapas authorities, who had initially assumed the bones were the remains of victims of organized crime, informed INAH of the discovery but only after the material had been collected, Gallaga said. The state government announced March 9 the discovery of 167 human skeletons in a cave thanks to “intelligence work” directed by the Chiapas AG’s office, whose experts erroneously calculated that the human remains were about...

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Yingxiu rises from the ashes

We arrived in Yingxiu town on a chilly early spring day full of misty rain, when snow still covered the tops of the surrounding mountains. From the distance, the town looked like it was from a fairy tale, though from close up it appeared to be carefully planned, with new villa-style residences lining the Yuzi River. It certainly didn't look like I expected one of the hardest hit towns in the 2008 quake to appear. It lost the majority of its population of 12,000. Its traffic and communications were cut off. And dangerous landslides and bad weather initially prevented rescuers from arriving. Four years after the devastation, locals' hearts appear to have healed, and traces of the quake are hard to find unless local guides show you around. Several sites that were affected by the earthquake have, however, been preserved as memorial sites, including the ruins of the primary school, where hundreds of students died. This approach has been duplicated...

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Dutch soldiers find suspected WWII mass grave in dunes

TILBURG, the Netherlands (BNO NEWS) — Dutch soldiers have possibly found a mass grave which may contain the bodies of up to fifteen people who were executed by German police during World War II, the government announced on Wednesday. The Dutch Ministry of Defense said a group of soldiers discovered two suspected graves last week while searching the Loonse and Drunense Dunes, a national park located between the cities of Tilburg, Waalwijk and Den Bosch, with ground-penetrating radar. It is believed up to fifteen people may be buried there. “After an afternoon of intensive research, soldiers from the 41st Armored Engineer Battalion discovered two disturbances on the radar,” the Ministry of Defense said in a statement on Wednesday. “This indicates the soil is different in composition in these locations. Around it they detected barbed wire and they found ammunition and a mortar.” The search was part of an exercise but focused on the story...

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Costa Concordia Disaster: 5 More Bodies Found In Cruise Wreckage

GIGLIO, Italy -- Search crews in Italy have found five more bodies in the wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, which struck a reef off an Italian island in January. The development on Thursday...

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Memorial wall to be constructed for ‘Sendong’ victims

A MEMORIAL wall is set to be constructed at the Gaston Park to remember those who perished at the height of Tropical Storm Sendong in December 2011. On Friday, groundbreaking of the marker was conducted by JCI Bai Lawanen, the project’s proponent. A MEMORIAL wall is set to be constructed at the Gaston Park to remember those who perished at the height of Tropical Storm Sendong in December 2011. On Friday, groundbreaking of the marker was conducted by JCI Bai Lawanen, the project’s proponent. The marker, which measures eight feet tall and 12 feet wide, will be engraved with the names of those who died in the flash flood based on the list of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC). Based on the NDRRMC list, at least 674 persons have been reported died during the tragedy. However, of the number, only 459 were in the master list who have already been identified. Once the list is updated, the JCI would also update...

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German cruise ship victim identified

The body of a victim recovered from the semi-submerged cruise liner Costa Concordia a month ago was officially identified Friday as German tourist Margarethe Neth, Italian officials said. Neth's body was found on February 22 along with seven others that were identified a week ago, the prefecture in Grosetto, which has jurisdiction over the island where the ship crashed, said in a statement. Five other bodies were found in the ship's wreckage on Thursday but it will take divers a few days to recover them before they can be identified. The Costa Concordia was carrying 4,229 passengers and crew when it struck rocks off Giglio island in Tuscany and keeled over on the night of January 13, killing 32 people. So far 30 bodies have been found but two are still missing. Meanwhile, salvage workers who began pumping 2,400 tonnes of fuel oil from the ship's tanks on February 12 have finally finished the operation, the Costa Crociere company said...

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Mass funeral for Middle Eastern victims of motorboat sinking

53 dead immigrants from the Middle East were victims of the Barokah motorboat that sank in the Prigi sea, Trenggalek, East Java, and will be buried in general cemetery sites in Putat Jaya. 53 dead immigrants...

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Mass funeral for Middle Eastern victims of motorboat sinking

53 dead immigrants from the Middle East were victims of the Barokah motorboat that sank in the Prigi sea, Trenggalek, East Java, and will be buried in general cemetery sites in Putat Jaya. 53 dead immigrants...

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Costa Concordia: Five more bodies found

More than two months after the cruise ship Costa Concordia capsized off the Italian coast, a team searching the wreck has found five more bodies. Italian authorities say they were found outside the ship, in a small space between the wreck and the sea bed. Altogether 30 bodies have now been found since the vessel ran aground off the island of Giglio on 13 January. The Costa Concordia was carrying 4,200 passengers and crew when its hull was torn open by rocks. Civil Protection Agency chief Franco Gabrielli did not give any details on the sex or ages of the latest victims to be found. Two people remain missing and are presumed dead. Eight more bodies were found in late February, but forensic authorities are still working on formally identifying them. A crew member from India and passengers from the US, Italy and Germany are reported to be among those as yet unaccounted for. 22 March 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-1747...

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