Three dead in Mara plane crash, Kenya

AN AIRCRAFT with 14 passengers has crashed in Kenya's Maasai Mara national park, one of the East African's country's most popular safari destinations for tourists, officials said.

Two pilots and a woman passenger died Wednesday after a plane crashed at an airstrip in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve.

Six passengers on board the 5YUV7 light aircraft, belonging to Mombasa air, were seriously injured as the pilots prepared to land at Ngerede Airstrip near the Mara Safari Club.

The airstrip manager Daniel Jivai, who spoke to Nation on the telephone, said he saw the aircraft wobble before it came down at around 12:17 pm.

He said 12 tourists, who were travelling from Mombasa to the Mara, were on board the plane at the time of the accident.

Three of the passengers were trapped in the wreckage but were rescued by hotel and airstrip personnel.

The rest of the passengers were receiving first aid.

“When we saw it coming down, there was a swift response from hotel personnel, tourists, and other visitors around the place and we managed to put off a small fire on one of the engines," said Mr Jivai.

A government team led by Narok South district commissioner, Chamwanga Mongo, was deployed to the area to carry out investigations.

Tourists travelling to see the spectacular wildebeest migration from Serengeti plains in Tanzania to the Mara are opting for air travel due to the bad state of the Narok-Mara road.

Cooperatives minister Joseph Nyaga, who was in Narok for an official function, cut short his speech to observe a minute of silence for those who died in the accident.

Wednesday 22 august 2012

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Three+dead+in+Mara+plane+crash/-/1056/1484818/-/jo9nok/-/index.html

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4 more bodies washed ashore at Lagos bar beach

Divers at the Lagos Bar Beach say four bodies, including a two year old boy, were recovered Monday morning, bringing the number of those confirmed dead in Saturday’s ocean surge to eight.

Controversy still trails the number of people who died in the unfortunate incident which occurred last Saturday.

One person had died Saturday after the Atlantic Ocean charged into Kuramo Beach in Lagos; while three bodies were recovered Sunday morning.

When the Nigerian Tribune visited the beach on Monday, one of the bodies seen, which was one of the four recovered on Monday, was that of a man, while there was nobody around, as of the time of the visit, to aid in its identification or evacuation.

The latest corpse washed ashore, at the time of filing this report, made it a total of eight recovered bodies, as seven bodies had earlier been recovered. However, according to information gathered, many people are still believed to be missing.

Mr Abe Edwards, who identified himself as the secretary of the security unit of Kuramo Beach, disclosed that he had personally identified no fewer than four bodies, adding that there was the possibility that more bodies would be recovered as time went on.

“I cannot really quantify the total number of people that died, because more bodies are recovered almost on daily basis. Today, the body of a baby girl, perhaps not more than a few months old, was recovered, while another, which has been identified as Olumide, has also been recovered.

“As you may know, it was a case of a surge, not just mere drowning. Therefore, it is not impossible that some bodies could be trapped in sand, and this would take excavation to find,” he said.

Also speaking to the Nigerian Tribune on the development, Mr Steve Richard, who identified himself as a frequent fun seeker at Kuramo and who claimed to have been around when the incident happened, insisted that apart from those who were swept away from their homes by the water, no fewer than four security personnel, who had attempted to rescue some of the people, also died in the process.

Following the incident, the Lagos State government rolled bulldozers into the beach, demolishing all the shanty structures around.

Wednesday 22 August 2012

http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/lead-stories/46262-4-more-bodies-washed-ashore-at-lagos-bar-beach

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Argentine team excavates migrant graves in Mexico

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Argentine forensics experts said Tuesday they have started excavating paupers' graves in southern Mexico that are believed to contain the bodies of migrants who died but were never identified.

Team member Mercedes Doretti said the group expects to find about 80 bodies dating back from two months to 12 years ago. The bodies were found without identification near roadways or railway tracks, on a route popular among Central American migrants trying to reach the United States.

Over the years, authorities collected the bodies and buried them in common graves in the cemetery in Tapachula, near Mexico's border with Guatemala.

Most migrants who cross Mexico are from Central America. They frequently suffer assault, kidnapping, robbery and death as they try to reach the United States.

The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team hopes to extract DNA from the bodies to try to find matches with relatives of missing migrants.

"There are families who have been waiting years for an answer" on the fate of missing relatives, Doretti said.

Doretti said Tuesday there should be no problem extracting DNA, but the process could take two or three months. The experts, including forensic medical examiners, forensic anthropologists and archaeologists, began digging Monday.

They requested permission to excavate from the Chiapas state prosecutors office to work on the project in conjunction with non-governmental organizations. The team has traveled to other Central American nations, aiming to build databases by interviewing the relatives of the missing and taking DNA samples from them that can be used to look for matches.

Previously, a delegation of forensic experts came to Mexico in 2006 to unearth and identify the remains of murdered women found in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. The team has also exhumed bodies of people "disappeared" during dictatorships and victims in countries afflicted by civil wars.

Amid violence against migrants and among drug gangs, Mexico faces a huge backlog in identifying bodies. Nearly 16,000 bodies found in Mexico since 2000 remain unidentified, according to the National Human Rights Commission, an independent government agency.

While the Argentine team has been working for almost 30 years in its homeland, and about 26 years in countries around the world, this is the first time it has exhumed migrants' remains in Mexico.

Wednesday 22 August 2012

http://www.wane.com/dpp/news/international/Argentines-excavate-migrant-graves-in-Mexico_50052524

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Dana crash: DNA shocker at mortuary

It is double tragedy for the family of Mr. Moses George, who was killed in the June 3, 2012 Dana plane crash in Lagos.

There is confusion over the Deoxyribonucleic Acid (otherwise called DNA) test result of the retired Fire Service official.

His body was intact when the family identified him after the incident.

In fact, he had an identification card on him.

The puzzle facing his family is how to collect his body whose DNA was one of the 132 results that arrived from the United Kingdom on August 6.

However, in a frantic effort to prove Hannah’s paternity and also claim the victim’s body from the mortuary, the family has re-submitted samples from Hannah and the victim’s younger sister to the Consultant Forensic Pathologist and Chief Examiner, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Prof John Obafunwa.

Recall that on the arrival of 132 DNA results from the United Kingdom on August 6, LASUTH and the Lagos State Government officials met with the bereaved families of the ill-fated plane to brief them on the processes and procedures of collecting the bodies, which were to commence the following day.

As various families besieged LASUTH mortuary to collect the bodies, the George family left no stone unturned to ensure the collection of their late brother’s remains, which they said they identified and were intact at the Lekan Ogunsola Memorial Mortuary, LASUTH.

But to the family’s amazement, their late brother’s name was not among those results pasted on the mortuary wall that were ready for collection.

Prior to the DNA test requirement by LASUTH, a cousin to the late George, Chief Moses Olajide, told Daily Sun that Hannah, the daughter of the deceased, and himself have identified his uncle’s body in the mortuary.

Olajide maintained that the late Assistant Comptroller of Fire Service was neither burnt nor mangled.

Olajide lamented that he began to panic when he discovered that his uncle’s name was not among those whose DNA results arrived from the UK.

He said: “A day after the incident, my cousin (Hannah) and l came here (LASUTH) to identify the body of my uncle. We saw it in the mortuary. The body was intact.

“His identity card was hung on him. The name was number 22 among the names of identifiable bodies released by the hospital.”

“I understand there were 16 bodies that were burnt beyond forensic analysis or some families could not show up with reference samples.

“But our case does not fall into any of these categories. So, where is his body?”

At this juncture, the family raised the alarm, asking for the whereabouts of their late brother.

Olajide, who is one the representatives of the family, lamented that the hospital management was reluctant in telling him what to do.

He bemoaned what he called the lackadaisical attitude with which officials of the hospital were responding to the family’s travail.

Another relative, who spoke on phone with Daily Sun, a cousin to the late Moses, Abiodun Anthony Dogbo, described the family’s ordeal in the process of collecting the body as untold agony.

Dogbo said: “Just imagine my late uncle’s body that was identified at first sight in the mortuary, yet after two months, we cannot still claim it. I must confess that it is prolonging and aggravating our pains.

“I wish everybody understands what we are talking about.

“The only daughter he had was pregnant when the incident happened. It took God’s intervention before she was delivered of her baby.

“I know they have good intention for not giving the victims mass burial. But the procedures of collecting the bodies are too demanding.

“If others could succeed in collecting their relatives, whose bodies were burnt and some dismembered, I see no reason why my late uncle’s body that was intact should become a mystery. I don’t want to think otherwise, l believe the body is somewhere. I beg them to give it to us.”

Dogbo, who claimed to be the family’s spokesman, added: “In short, l am confused at the moment.

“Prof. said the DNA results did not correspond with that of the man (deceased).

“Really, I don’t understand what is happening. What could that mean?

Not satisfied with Prof. Obafunwa’s analysis of the DNA results, the family inquired what should be done to collect their late brother’s body.

Daily Sun authoritatively gathered that fresh test was to be conducted, as samples had been collected from the deceased’s sister in addition to Hannah’s.

Wednesday 22 August 2012

http://sunnewsonline.com/new/national/dana-dna-shocker-at-mortuary/

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