UN staff to aid survivors after refugee-camp fire, victim identification ongoing

The UN refugee agency will dispatch social workers to assist refugees affected by a fire that claimed at least 36 lives and destroyed hundreds of dwellings at a camp in Mae Hong Son's Khun Yuam district on Friday.

The inferno has left many survivors scarred, especially children and the elderly. More than 100 refugees were injured in the incident. Four of the injured refugees are in critical condition.

The UNHCR will seek support from the government to station Thai social workers at the camp, which shelters about 3,700 refugees, most of whom are Christians.

Htoowea Lweh, a member of the Karenni Refugee Committee, said most of the elderly refugees and children had been left traumatised. Her team needs to talk with them and help them to recover, she said.

"We have found that most of the children are shaken. They do not leave their parents' sides. And they are still frightened after the devastating fire," she said. About 520 children aged less than 5 live in the camp.

Interior Minister Charupong Ruangsuwan said yesterday that the bodies of most of the dead were found near the cliffs or in the hills near the camp. "We will draw up a proper plan to prevent such an incident from recurring," he said.

The process of identifying the victims has already begun. A total of 23 bodies had been identified as of press time.

Police and doctors expected to identify 13 more very soon. "But if DNA tests are needed, officials may need more time. The results will be available within seven days in that case," Charupong said.

Police Bureau Region 5 deputy commissioner Pol Maj-General Chamnan Ruadrew said the number of people killed in the fire was confirmed at 36. According to the latest report from the Mae Hong Son Public Health Office, however, 36 refugees were killed and one was still missing.

The Public Health Ministry has dispatched communicable disease control officials, sanitation officers, psychologists, psychiatrists, medical units, food and water to assist the refugees. More than 500 mosquito nets treated with pyrethroid have been distributed to the refugees to prevent them from contracting malaria.

Health Minister Dr Pradit Sinthawanarong said officials dispatched to the camp will monitor the situation to prevent the spread of communicable diseases borne by insects such as mosquitoes.

Psychiatrists and psychologists from Khun Yuam Hospital, Sri Sangwan Hospital and Thanyarak Hospital in Mae Hong Son and a team of interpreters will be working to screen refugees and rehabilitate those who are in need of help.

A team of medical personnel from Khun Yuam Hospital will also provide treatment for the victims.

Of the injured, two were being treated at Maharat Hospital in Chiang Mai and seven at Mae Hong Son Hospital.

A centre to accept public donations has been established in Mae Hong Son provincial hall and at every district hall in the province. Donations are being accepted via Krung Thai Bank's Mae Hong Son branch, account number 508-0-256-109.

Mae Hong Son Governor Naruemol Palwat said the province is assisting the refugees by providing food, distributing 800 tents with support from the UNHCR, facilitating medical assistance provided by the International Red Cross and medical teams from Mae Hong Son province.

Armed Forces Development commissioner General Sommai Kaodira said his unit has sent mobile kitchens and water trucks to help the affected refugees.

The disaster, which has left more than 2,300 refugees homeless, is believed to have started when a cooking fire got out of control.

Monday 25 March 2013

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/UN-staff-to-aid-survivors-after-refugee-camp-fire-30202620.html

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A pre conclusion about the period of Mathale mass grave

Kelaniya University Postgraduate Institute Professor Raaj Somadeva who is probing the Maatale mass grave says that a pre-conclusion has been arrived at with regard to the period of the mass grave found at the Maatale hospital grounds.

The Professor said that it was possible to reach these conclusions based on gold rings recovered from the grave.

The Professor also said that attention had also been drawn on a garbage dumping site near the grave.

The Professor said that the decaying of bone fragments had been accelerated as a result of the decaying of the garbage.

The Professor said that the 54-page report the Atomic Energy Authority and he had jointly prepared had been presented on 23rd of February.

This mass grave was discovered on November 23rd last year while preparing the ground for constructing the Bio Gas Unit at the Maatale Hospital Grounds.

The excavations of the Maatale mass grave ended on February 12th.

During these excavations while 154 human bone fragments were recovered, of these 141 were human skulls

Monday 25 March 2013

http://www.hirunews.lk/55898

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Deadly landslide hits Indonesia's main island

A government official has said a landslide triggered by torrential rain has killed at least six people and left 18 others missing on Indonesia's main island of Java.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho of the Disaster Mitigation Agency on Monday said nine houses were buried when mud gushed down from surrounding hills just after dawn Monday in Cililin village, West Bandung district.

He said rescuers pulled out six bodies, including four children, hours after the landslide.

Hundreds of police, soldiers and residents were digging through the debris, using their bare hands, shovels and hoes in search of the others reported missing.

Seasonal downpours cause dozens of landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia, a vast chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains.

Last month, at least 13 people were killed and hundreds forced to leave their homes after landslides and floods triggered by torrential rains hit North Sulawesi province's capital city of Manado.

Monday 25 March 2013

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2013/03/201332552655912999.html

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Mexican forensic expert bathes bodies to solve crimes

Mexican forensic expert Alejandro Hernandez dips dry, yellowish cadavers in a see-through bath, hoping his technique to rehydrate mummified bodies will solve murders in crime-infested Ciudad Juarez.

The city bordering Texas has endured drug-related violence and a wave of murders of women in recent years, with bodies dumped anywhere and drying up quickly in the desert climate, complicating the task of identifying victims and their cause of death. With his special solution, whose recipe he keeps secret, Hernandez can rehydrate bodies, making facial features as well as gunshot or stab wounds reappear.

"It is common with the climate in Ciudad Juarez...for bodies to mummify or stiffen, with the skin stretched like drums," Hernandez, an expert at the Chihuahua state prosecutor's office, told AFP.

"It has always been a great satisfaction every time we were able to identify or determine the cause of death in the 150 cases that we participated in."

The scientist has plenty of work on his hands.

Juarez became infamous in the 1990s when hundreds of women were killed in an inexplicable homicidal binge that cast a dark shadow over the city.

The "femicides" were followed by a surge of violence between powerful drug cartels that left more than 10,500 people dead in the past six years.

Sometimes, victims are discovered in a mummified state years after they were buried, often making it impossible to identify them. This is where Hernandez comes in.

Techniques to rehydrate fingers in order to get fingerprints have existed for more than a decade, but Hernandez began using his method to restore entire bodies in 2008. He is currently seeking a patent to protect his secret method.

Elizabeth Gardner, a forensic science professor at the University of Alabama who saw a body treated by Hernandez, said that the "process works, the corpse was restored and looked like it could be identified from its facial features."

"To the extent of my knowledge, this is the only method for rehydrating a corpse," she said. "This technique will be most useful in dry areas, like Juarez. It's labor - and materials - intensive, but it will be useful when other techniques fail."

With the help of assistants in a lab that smells of death and chemicals, a cadaver is raised in a harness, gingerly lowered into the hermetically sealed bath, and left to soak for four to seven days. Sometimes, technicians just dip a body part.

"We spin (the body) around the whole time until the human parts or the cadaver regain a more natural aspect," Hernandez said. "Then you can observe moles, scars, blemishes, pathological or traumatic characteristics, which allow you to find the cause of death."

Hernandez freezes decomposing bodies until they dry up, and then he soaks them in his special bath.

"We are only doing this here in Ciudad Juarez," he said, adding that the process is inexpensive.

The brutal drug war between the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels has waned in the past year, dramatically lowering the homicide rate in the city that was once the murder capital of Mexico.

But bodies continue to pile up, with men still disappearing and human remains being discovered around the desert city of 1.3 million people.

Just this month, mothers of people who disappeared worked with the police to look for remains in a desert area near Juarez, and found bones they hope to identify one day.

Monday 25 March 2013

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iBrz2JTP6ugGi80vZXXpDItxFatw?docId=CNG.7437232f8a6d540d977d91c786d42cc0.481

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Communities can protect themselves from natural disasters

Fewer communities will be affected by natural disasters if they become actively involved in disaster preparedness and emergency response activities, says a representative of a prominent NGO.

"Every village is different and their own people understand what happened in the past and what may happen in the future," Oxfam Indonesia country director Richard Mawer told The Jakarta Post.

Mawer was speaking in relation to the progress of Building Resilience in Eastern Indonesia, a disaster risk reduction project that has been developed by Oxfam Indonesia in 16 districts since June 2009.

Communities in Nuri and Welo villages in Larantuka regency, one of the Building Resilience project sites in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), can now avoid significant damage during a disaster after they developed volunteer village preparedness teams to map out disaster risks and identify how to minimize them.

Mawer said the village teams would play a major role in protecting their villages from future floods, landslides, forest fires and even volcano eruptions. The teams looked at a whole range of issues, from analyzing the risks to understanding how they responded to these risks, and then took the necessary action to avoid damage caused by disasters.

These actions included cleaning river beds and building up river walls, planting trees to slow down the water flow and training villagers with first aid skills and on how to build temporary shelters.

“They are looking at what they can do to ensure that the water coming down the hill will not wash away their houses and put their families at risk,” said Mawer.

Through the program, women have been demonstrating what important roles they can play in village affairs, including in disaster preparedness and emergency response and in identifying future priorities for village development funds. Some of them have also initiated credit unions for women.

"It's encouraging to see that the Regional Disaster Mitigation Agency [BPBD] Larantuka plans to replicate this approach to all 250 villages in the region over the coming years," said Mawer.

A Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Forum established in Larantuka in 2012 ensured that the BPBD, local communities and other stakeholders, including other government ministries, local NGOs and religious organizations, could work closely together and learn from each other in dealing with disaster risks.

Sunday 24 March 2013

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/03/24/communities-can-protect-themselves-natural-disasters-says-oxfam.html

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Painful search for Argentina's disappeared

Marcos Queipo grew up in a place where dead bodies would fall from the sky.

In the late 1970s he was a mechanic who worked in the different islands of the Parana Delta, 200km (12.4 miles) north of the capital, Buenos Aires.

"I remember seeing these military planes throwing these strange packages over the area. I did not know what they were," he says.

"But I then saw these packages floating on the river banks. When I opened them I was aghast. The packages were dead bodies."

These events happened when Argentina's last military government was in power - from 1976 to 1983.

"At first, we did not know what these packages carried inside. But then it became known that they were human bodies”

The junta was then leading a brutal crackdown on political dissidents, a period known as the "Dirty War". Official accounts say almost 20,000 people were "disappeared" by the regime, but human rights groups say the figure is at least 30,000.

Fewer than 600 have been found and identified since then by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, a non-governmental scientific organisation.

The disappearances have left a deep scar in Argentine society for decades - in particular on those who had a relative taken away by the security forces at the time.

The pattern was similar for those arrested. Many were taken from their homes in the middle of the night, tortured at clandestine detention centres and then disposed of.

After years of investigations, it is thought that some bodies were destroyed with dynamite and others buried in unknown common graves, but the majority were thrown from planes into the Atlantic Ocean.

Now a new book could help provide some answers to one of Argentina's long lasting mysteries.

Written by journalist Fabian Magnotta, it is based on numerous and never-heard-before witness accounts, is pointing towards the Parana Delta as a possible mass graveyard for the disappeared.

'Death flights'

"You would see the planes in the sky, opening their hatch and dropping the packages over the area," remembers Jose Luis Pinazo, who for 40 years has driven the school boat of the area, transporting the children that live on the delta's islands.

"Sometimes you would see them every day, at other times twice a week."

"At first, we did not know what these packages carried inside. But then it became known that they were human bodies, many found on the river banks," he adds.

Mr Magnotta's book collects accounts from islanders in the delta who found bodies hanging from tree tops - in one case a body fell straight into someone's house.

"I would tell the children not to look at the bodies in the river. It was not something nice," says Mr Pinazo.

The testimonies gathered in this investigation have now been handed over to prosecutors in the current trial about the "Death Flights", in which seven people (including several former military pilots) stand accused of throwing prisoners from planes after the military seized power in 1976.

"The things I saw were not something you would talk about with others. Those were difficult times," says Mr Pinazo.

Marcos Queipo remembers that when he started finding bodies along the river, he decided to go to the police to report them.

"But they told me: 'Shut up or the same will happen to you.'"

After the junta's coup, officers at all police stations in Argentina were interviewed by the military. Many have been convicted for their roles in human rights abuses that occurred at the time.

"The people in the Parana Delta are known to be very reserved and not likely to open up to outsiders. But they also kept quiet because of fear of the military," says Mr Magnotta.

Slow process

Mr Magnotta lives in the nearby city of Gualeguaychu. For years he slowly worked to gain the trust of the islanders with the help of a local friend who lives in the delta's main town, Villa Paranacito.

Many were initially wary of speaking out, but the trials and convictions of former military officers that have taken place in Argentina in recent years have given courage to those who were afraid of telling what they knew.

Both Mr Queipo and Mr Pinazo only agreed to speak to the BBC if their names or faces were not shown. But after doing the interview, they both changed their minds and accepted being identified.

"Since my book was published more and more people have come forward to give testimony of the horrible things they saw here during the dictatorship," says Mr Magnotta.

He says that now, at least twice a week, he is getting emails or calls from people who want to add information to his research.

"The publication of this investigation has helped those who were reluctant to speak before," he adds.

Hope

Families of the disappeared are watching closely to see what this new research can add to their decades-long search.

"I still have hopes of finding the remains of my son. If I ever find them it will help me enormously," says Santa Teresita Dezorzi, who at 82 is still politically active. She is the leader of the human rights organisation Mothers of May Square of Gualeguaychu.

Her son Oscar was kidnapped by security forces on 10 August 1976. He was arrested in the middle of the night, forced half naked into a vehicle, and never seen again.

He was a member of Montoneros, an armed guerrilla group which fought the military in the late 1970s.

"Of course I have thought long about the possibility that his remains are here, in the nearby delta. How can I not think about that?," she says.

At the time of his arrest Oscar had a five-month old son, Emanuel, who is now 37. As for his grandmother, the disappearance of his father is a burden he has carried all of his life.

"I remember when I was a child that people would look at me as if they knew something I did not. Families like ours, who have lived with a situation like this, are different. We are not a normal family," says Emanuel.

Last December a court found four former military and police officers guilty of the illegal arrest, torture and disappearance of Oscar Dezorzi and three other left-wing activists from Gualeguaychu.

But for the Dezorzis, the trial produced no information on where Oscar's remains might be.

"I don't know why they still have to keep hurting us. My grandmother has done nothing wrong. I have done nothing wrong. Then why not tell us where my dad is," says Emanuel Dezorzi.

"There are many families in Argentina destroyed by this, just like us. We have gone through 37 years of not knowing. To have a relative disappeared is a wound that does not close until the person appears again."

Sunday 24 March 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-21884147

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