Winter halts digging at Bosnia's largest mass grave

Forensic experts will quit exhumations during the winter at a mass grave in northwestern Bosnia believed to be the largest found so far from the Bosnian 1992-95 war.

The remains of 430 people have been exhumed since work began in August at the Tomasica grave. The victims were Muslim Bosniaks and Croats from around the nearby town of Prijedor who were killed by Serbs trying to drive non-Serbs out of the area.

In 2001, forensic experts found 373 victims they believe were originally buried at Tomasica, then reburied at the Jakarina Kosa, a nearby secondary grave. In the years since, 36 more bodies have been found at Tomasica.

"If we take into account the bodies found at Jakarina Kosa and later at Tomasica, we can say with certainty for now that 850 bodies had been buried at Tomasica," said Lejla Cengic, a spokeswoman for Bosnia's Institute for Missing Persons, which conducts and coordinates the digging.

Exhumations will resume in the spring, Cengic said, when more bodies were expected to be found. Around 1,200 people are still missing from the Prijedor area.

On Monday, Theodor Meron, the president of the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, paid his respect to the victims at Tomasica. Standing at the edge of the muddy grave, Meron, a Jew who survived the Holocaust in Poland, Meron said the site had a very special "resonance" for him.

"It looks a little bit like the quarry not far from the city where I spent my war years ... in Poland, where my mother was killed," he said. "And this means more to me than theory of international justice."

The Hague-based U.N. war crimes tribunal has sentenced 16 Bosnian Serbs to a total of 230 years in prison for atrocities in the Prijedor area.

Tuesday 26 November 2013 http://www.trust.org/item/20131125165315-ov5ek

continue reading

57 more bodies recovered in Tacloban

The Philippine National Police (PNP) has recovered 57 more cadavers in this city on Sunday, 17 days after super typhoon "Yolanda" (international code name: Haiyan) struck Eastern Visayas provinces.

Senior Superintendent Emmanuel Aranas, deputy director for operations of the PNP crime laboratory, said in a briefing Monday morning that more bodies have been recovered everyday as the national government launched massive clearing operations.

"We have to dispose cadavers immediately since it's already in the advanced stage of decomposition. Since they perished from natural calamities, families of victims don't even bother to identify dead bodies," Aranas said.

Dead bodies were retrieved by the 300 police personnel in the hardly hit coastal villages of Magallanes, Anibong and San Jose district. Clearing operations paved the way for the recovery of more bodies.

Since November 9, policemen have recovered 1,932 bodies in the typhoon-ravaged Tacloban, a city of more than 200,000 population, the capital of Eastern Visayas.

Of the total number, 235 bodies are still unidentified by the police scene of the crime operatives, according to Aranas.

"We are asking the National Bureau of Investigation to lead the identification of cadavers to facilitate the disposal of bodies," the official said, citing an administrative order of the health department designating the NBI as the lead agency in cadaver identification after natural calamities.

Police admitted that disposing these bodies have been hampered by lack of equipment that will transport cadavers to mass grave sites in northern villages of Suhi and Basper.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) deployed only six trucks to transport dead bodies from villages to mass grave sites.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) reported the number of casualties has reached 5,235 when super typhoon "Yolanda" hit central Philippines on Nov. 8. There are still 1,613 missing persons.

Deaths have been reported in 35 towns in Leyte, eight towns in Eastern Samar, and two towns in Samar, according to the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

In typhoon-stricken Leyte towns of Palo and Tanauan, public plazas were converted by the local government as mass grave sites.

However, in many villages, residents tagged burial sites for their relatives. Some are located along roadsides, residential areas, vacant lots and near the shores.

Paula Sydiongco, assistant regional director of the Department of Health Eastern Visayas, said this practice is unlawful considering the health hazards posed to the community.

"We will look into that problem, but our priority for now is addressing other health risks arising from the disaster such as leptospirosis and water-borne diseases," Sydiongco said.

Aranas confirmed there are some illegal burials in Tacloban but they have to tolerate that for now considering the lack of resources to collect all cadavers.

"I think we should tolerate that for now, but we just make sure that burial sites are not close to water sources," he noted.

Tuesday 26 November 2013

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/75608/57-more-bodies-recovered-in-tacloban

continue reading

Mexico: Tally of bodies exhumed from clandestine grave grows to 42

The number of exhumed bodies now stands at 42 -- and the digging continues at the latest clandestine mass grave to be discovered on Mexican soil.

This month, Mexican authorities declared that they had exhumed 19 unidentified bodies from the unmarked burial ground along the Lerma River, in the western state of Jalisco. The site is near the border with Michoacan, a state reeling from the presence of violent drug cartels.

Since the initial announcement of the discovery, the number of exhumed bodies has continued to grow as officials continue their grisly work. It is unclear, however, how much closure the discoveries will bring for the families of the thousands who have disappeared in this country in recent years: Thus far, none of the 42 bodies have been identified, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office in Jalisco told The Times on Monday.

Such killing fields are a distressingly common reality in modern Mexico, where more than 26,000 people went missing during the 2006-2012 term of President Felipe Calderon. Then, as now, Mexico was reeling from a host of problems connected to organized crime, corruption and the federal government’s attempt to push back against the power of the narco groups. The disappeared include ordinary people, rival drug cartel members and police as well as U.S.-bound migrants, who were a favorite kidnapping target for criminal groups.

The current grave site was discovered after two federal police officers disappeared in Michoacan. Suspects detained in the case later tipped off authorities to the presence of the burial ground.

However, the remains of the policemen have not turned up among the 42 bodies, a spokesman for the federal attorney general’s office said.

Authorities this month also discovered the remains of six men and a woman buried in a lime grove near the Pacific tourist city of Acapulco.

In May, President Enrique Peña Nieto announced the creation of a task force to search for the missing.

Tuesday 26 November 2013

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-mexico-mass-grave-20131125,0,7743678.story#axzz2ljy2NUpZ

continue reading

10 dead, 16 missing after cargo ships sink off east China

Ten bodies were recovered Monday and more than a dozen people remained missing after two cargo vessels sank off east China in two separate accidents, rescue workers said on Tuesday, with officials blaming strong gales and high waves as the likely cause of both sinkings.

The first incident happened at around 9 p.m. local time on Sunday when the local cargo vessel XINGLONGZHOU65 sank off Yantai, a coastal city in northeastern Shandong province. The 88-meter (288-feet)-long vessel, which was loaded with stone, was carrying a total of twelve crew members, of whom rescuers had recovered three bodies by Tuesday while the other nine remained missing.

The second incident happened hours later, just before 3 a.m. local time on Monday, when the local cargo vessel ZIHAISHUN sank off Weihai, which is only about 60 kilometers (37 miles) east of Yantai. The cargo ship was carrying fourteen people when it sank, and rescue workers were able to recover seven bodies while the other seven remained missing.

Rescuers using boats and helicopters continued their search on Tuesday, but authorities said it was unlikely any of the missing were still alive. The Shandong Maritime Safety Administration said strong gales caused the first cargo vessel to begin leaning after it lost power, and contact with maritime officials was lost about six minutes later.

Tuesday 26 November 2013

http://wireupdate.com/10-dead-16-missing-after-cargo-ships-sink-off-east-china.html

continue reading