Waiting for the dead of Lampedusa

Relatives of those who died in one of the worst boat disasters off the shores of Europe in living memory are still waiting to be allowed to take their family members for a proper burial. A total of 366 people - mostly from Eritrea - died when the boat carrying them sank close to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Church bells sound on the late afternoon breeze as Alem Araya walks through the cemetery in the little Sicilian village of San Biagio Platani.

"Emotional, yes," he says quietly. "It's not easy."

Mr Araya, 49, an Eritrean who has lived in Germany for much of his life, passes row upon row of ornate tombs, pictures of the Virgin Mary and Jesus looking down on him as he heads for the open ground at the bottom of the hill.

There, against a wall, are five basic graves, each with a headstone.

He stops in front of them, crosses himself, bows his head slightly and then, after a moment, breaks down in tears. His sobs echo across the grave of his brother, and the four others lying now at his feet.

"They were all together in the boat from Libya to Lampedusa," he says quietly. "Four persons from Eritrea and one person from Ethiopia. All of them just young people."

His brother Bimnet was 36 years old. A former basketball player for the Eritrean national team. He had studied at university in London.

"He needed peace," Mr Araya says, wiping away a tear. "He's not alone. All of the generation of my brother have no future in Eritrea. That's why they left. To make another life in Europe. But their life ended in Lampedusa."

Bimnet could no longer stand the political situation in Eritrea, so like many others he crossed the border into neighbouring Sudan. From there he travelled to Libya to take a boat to Europe.

"I was against this travel to Libya," his brother says.

"I tried to bring him legally from Sudan to Germany. But he has many friends, and they were ready to go to Libya. He decided in a short time: 'No I cannot stay here - I will also take my chance with them.'"

There was no morgue big enough to store the bodies from the shipwreck, so for days they decayed in the heat of a hanger at Lampedusa's airport.

Then they were shipped off to Sicily and buried - stored essentially - at cemeteries across the island.

Most of the dead are identified only by a number - either placed next to their grave or etched into the concrete behind which they are entombed.

Some graves have been decorated with pictures of those buried inside. Next to one is a picture of a young couple and their baby girl. Number 93. Her name is Fthi.

Most likely the pictures were placed there by relatives who live in Europe who can visit, and who have been able to find their family members.

So far though - because there has been no proper identification process - they have not been able to take the bodies home for a proper burial. And most relatives cannot come - they cannot get the visa to leave Eritrea.

A massive DNA-testing programme is needed. In a clinic in the southern Sicilian town of Agrigento, Alem Araya is one of the first to have blood and a saliva swab taken.

He hands over 150 euros (£124; $203) to pay for the test, after struggling to make himself understood by the assistant who does not speak much English.

He has the money and resources to do this, and because he is a European resident he can come to Sicily. Most relatives of those who died cannot.

But even for him it has been very difficult to get this far.

"The problem is the Italian government is not ready to help us," he says. "The situation is very, very difficult and they know that. But I don't think they are ready to help me quickly."

When the boat sank, Italy's prime minister promised to do all he could to help the relatives.

Yet two months later, at the anonymous graves with their scratched in numbers, it is as if they have been forgotten, the evidence of Europe's worst maritime tragedy in years literally buried away.

The Italian government would not comment on Alem Araya's allegations.

He believes local officials are doing all they can, and yet for him and for his elderly mother, who is waiting back home in Eritrea for her son's body to be returned, it is all too painfully slow.

"For my mother when I say one more day, it's for her one year of pain," he says.

"It's too long. And not only for my mother, for all of the victims who have family in Eritrea and elsewhere. They are waiting for all the bodies to go back to Eritrea."

Up on a promenade close to the centre of Agrigento, he leans on a railing, the sun's light bouncing up off the Mediterranean Sea far below him.

"It's hard," he says. "Very, very hard to think about the situation in Lampedusa. I can't forget it."

His voice trails off, as he looks out at the sea. The sea in which his brother died.

Thursday 5 December 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25220047

‘Yolanda’ death toll reaches 5,818

The death toll in the wake of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: “Haiyan”) on Wednesday neared the 6,000 mark, nearly three times the initial estimate made by President Aquino days after the strongest typhoon to hit land battered Eastern Visayas.

There were still discrepancies in the numbers, however, highlighting the government’s inadequate system of assessing the physical damage from natural disasters.

Latest reports from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) and field reports showed there were 5,818 fatalities from Yolanda, nearly the majority of whom drowned in the storm surge that caught many residents by surprise.

Of the figure, the NDRRMC said that 2,116 were from Tacloban City.

On Wednesday, field reports from Tacloban City showed that authorities had already recovered 2,215 bodies.

It was not even clear whether there were really a hundred bodies found floating in mangroves in San Juanico Bridge on Tuesday.

Senior Supt. Pablito Cordeta, an official of the Bureau of Fire Protection office here and the commander of the Task Force Cadaver in Tacloban City, said that his group recovered 25 bodies on Tuesday, bringing the total to 2,215.

He said another seven bodies were retrieved from the San Juanico Bridge on Dec. 2.

Cordeta debunked reports that more than 100 bodies were discovered by a Chinese humanitarian team floating at the famed bridge connecting Samar and Leyte across the San Juanico strait.

“That’s not true. We are belying that. There was no coordination with the task force. I am the task force commander and we do not know those foreigners and what they were claiming,” Cordeta said in Filipino.

Earlier estimates of fatalities from the supertyphoon were pegged at 10,000, which President Aquino lowered to between 2,000 and 2,500.

As the number of fatalities breached the 5,000 mark last week, Aquino conceded that the death toll could actually be higher. He said the low estimate he gave was based on the initial confirmed dead reported to him.

Government also criticized the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for giving an initial estimate that was double than what President Aquino had earlier announced.

Establishing the death toll from a calamity is an important measure in assessing the impact of a natural disaster, enabling governments to establish their disaster risk reduction policies and measures.

Thursday 5 December 2013

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/540749/yolanda-death-toll-reaches-5818

14 killed, 10 injured in Burkina Faso mine accident

At least 14 workers have been killed and 10 others injured when an illegal gold mine collapsed in western Burkina Faso, an official says.

The cave-in happened at around 1 a.m. local time (0100 GMT) on Sunday as miners were using dynamite inside an 80-meter (260-foot) deep mineshaft located in the town of Bagassi, just southwest of the capital Ouagadougou, said district administrator Tingande Nehemi Zoundi on Wednesday.

“Just after that dynamiting, a rock situated two meters below ground level became detached. All the people situated at the level below were struck,” the administrator said.

It took 17 hours for Emergency personnel to recover the bodies, all of whom are buried now, Zoundi added.

Interior Ministry official Sadou Sidibe blamed the accident on “anarchic” mining practices -- usually carried out by miners who work at unregulated mines and often with no protection.

The Burkina Faso government has prohibited artisanal mining during June to September -- the wet months -- but experts say officials do not have the means to enforce the ban.

The Bagassi site has been illegally mined for 17 years, with Canada-based miner Roxgold tasked with chasing out illegal miners while awaiting a mining permit.

Illegal and informal mining accidents are widespread during the rainy season throughout West Africa, where gold deposits can be found.

Thursday 5 December 2013

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/12/04/338268/14-killed-in-burkina-faso-mine-accident/

Maharashtra staff Uttarakhand-bound to certify missing persons

The state will soon send officials from the Disaster Management Unit to Uttarakhand to clear confusion, coordinate and ensure that the death certificates are issued to all the 166 missing from the state.

There has been uncertainty over the number of people missing in the Uttarakhand floods.

However, the Uttarakhand government about two months ago released a list of 4,120 persons missing, of which 165 have been from state.

According to the state disaster management department, the number of people missing from Maharashtra totals to 165 besides one more person from Mumbai has been added to the list.

“There was some confusion about the 166th person missing as the family members had approached the Uttarakhand government directly. Therefore, we had no idea about this person,” said the official.

“As a matter of procedure, no death certificate is issued until the passage of seven years in case of missing persons. In this case, the central government has made an exception considering the circumstances of the disaster and the practical difficulties of finding their bodies or identifying them with tools such as DNA matching etc,” the official added.

Until the certificate is issued by the Uttarakhand government, compensation will not be granted to the family by the Uttarakhand government. “We are sending officials from to Uttarakhand.

Following which, the District Magistrate of the home district of the missing person will co-ordinate with the District Magistrate where the person may have gone missing in Uttarakhand. Once the co-ordination and procedures are followed, then a certificate will be issued by their state government for the victim. Once the death certificate is issued, then the compensation too would be given,” said the official.

Thursday 5 December 2013

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-maharashtra-staff-uttarakhand-bound-to-certify-missing-persons-1929919

GenSan's missing fishermen, a year after typhoon Pablo

Exactly a year ago on Wednesday, December 4, some 377 fishermen from General Santos City were caught in the middle of a perfect storm.

Nobody knew what their fate were until well into the late afternoon of the following day, 5 Dec 2012, when a worried Dominic Salazar said only 3 crew members of a light boat owned by their company, Thidcor Fishing, have been found alive from a fishing fleet that consisted of one catcher vessel, a light boat and a ranger boat.

They were the fortunate to have survived the 30-feet waves that battered their boats for more than 12 hours. Their 24 other companions did not. They were never found.

So were the remains of 328 others.

Of the 377 fishermen who were officially accounted for, only 17 survived and only 8 of the missing were found. The rest were long ago presumed already dead, when the government rescuers gave up the vain search for their bodies two weeks after Super Typhoon Pablo (Bopha) hit Mindanao.

Such was the wrath of Pablo that it brought death and devastation both inland and in the high seas.

On 3 Dec 2012, Pablo approached and battered eastern Mindanao like no other typhoon in its recorded history. It hit landfall just after midnight.

Pablo left on its wake more than 1,043 dead, most of them in the provinces of Compostela Valley and Davao Province. The figure includes the fishermen for General Santos City and Sarangani.

General Santos City Mayor Ronnel Rivera said the story of the brave fishermen who lost their lives in the storm is not lost in memory. Without them and the more than 25,000 directly employed in the fishing industry, this city would not have earned its moniker as the Tuna Capital of the Philippines.

But a year into their tragic agony and death, no one seems to remember them anymore.

Even the promised marker to honor their memory has been lost in the conversation among city officials.

The city council, many of members not yet elected when the tragedy happened, does not seem to care despite expressing interests in honoring the dead and missing fishermen as soon as they were elected into office in May.

The previous city council was even worse. When then city councilor Rivera introduced a resolution to erect a monument in honor of the dead, he was immediately met with skepticism from the then majority block identified with former city mayor Darlene Antonino Custodio.

Custodio herself promised to seriously consider the proposal. It apparently got lost along the way as nothing ever came out from city hall.

Neither has the Socsksargen Association of Fishing and Allied Industry seriously pursued its commitment to set aside funds for the construction of such memorial.

Fishing boat owners have seemed to move on, having settled most of their promised obligations to the families of the victims of Pablo – some for a mere P50,000 cash assistance.

Maybe the more devastating Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) already buried the memory of Pablo.

But for the wives and children, mothers and fathers who were left behind, the memory and the wounds are as fresh as they were a year ago.

Angelina Nemeño, whose husband Cornelio as among those whose body was never found, said coming to terms for her and children’s loss is a reality they have already embraced. But the pitiful assistance they got from the owner of the fishing boat is still too painful to ignore.

Cornelio, then 51, was the piyado – boat skipper – of F/B Queen Mary owned by Thidcor Fishing.

All she got from the company was P70,000 despite the 26 years of service her husband had rendered for the company. She also received P20,000 burial assistance and another P14,000 as death benefits from the Social Security System (SSS). Angelina says she will begin receiving pension from the SSS in January 2014 – for P1,000 a month.

Like Angelina, Alma Andaya also received P50,000 in cash assistance from RA Fishing Industry for her husband Rolan Dampog who likewise was declared missing.

All families of the victims – dead and the few who survived – also got P10,000 each from the local government and grocery items.

But after that, they were left to fend for their own as the fishing companies were insistent that sans the employer-employee relationship, they are not required to give beyond that assistance they have agreed to offer – P50,000.

Sadly, not one of those interviewed said their husbands and sons left some insurance policies for such eventuality.

Sr. Susan Bolaño who is helping organize the families of the victims to secure justice said they have been preparing legal actions against the fishing companies where the missing fishermen worked prior their presumed deaths. But for some, they have given up hope and chose to suffer in silence.

They chose December 4 as the day to remember their departed – the tomb markers and epitaphs etched in the blue waters.

In a heart-rending commemoration of the tragic fate of their loved ones, they offered flowers to the sea – hoping the memory of their dead will not be lost in the city made famous by its brave fishermen.

Thursday 5 December 2013

http://www.rappler.com/nation/45306-general-santos-missing-fishermen-a-year-after-pablo