Thirteen Army Personnel Missing as Boat Used in Training Exercise Sinks in Klebang Besar

Thirteen army personnel are missing after the boat they were travelling in sank near the waters of Klebang Besar.

Initial information from the state Fire and Rescue Department's operations action centre showed that several fire engines and all officers from its diver unit had been dispatched for a search and rescue operation from about 5pm on Sunday.

It was believed that the group were on a regular training exercise since 9pm Saturday.

An emergency response booth has been set up on a beach with an ambulance on standby.

Army personnel were seen securing the beach area and members of the media were asked to leave.

An unidentified uniformed personnel insisted that a reporter from a vernacular newspaper deleted a picture showing army personnel and their boat near the beach from her laptop.

No official information has been obtained from the army nor police so far.

The search and rescue operation is ongoing.

Sunday 8 December 2013

http://www.malaysiandigest.com/frontpage/282-main-tile/481038-thirteen-army-personnel-missing-after-boat-sinks-during-training-exercise.html

Mozambique air crash: DNA collected to identify bodies

Work has begun on collecting DNA samples from relatives of those who died when the Mozambique Airlines (LAM) flight from Maputo to Luanda crashed on 29 November in northern Namibia, killing all 33 people on board.

According to a LAM press release, this work began on Friday, and is intended to assist in the identification of the bodies, which are currently in a morgue in the Namibian capital, Windhoek.

Reports from the crash site indicate that only one of the bodies was intact. The force of the impact dismembered the others, many of which were too severely burned for normal identification.

People directly related to the victims are being asked to come forward and provide samples. These, LAM says, will be examined “by a small group of well trained and experienced professionals, working on the basis of internationally recognised standards. They have been authorised by Mozambican forensic pathologists to undertake this important job”.

This work is being done in private, and LAM guarantees that “the data will remain confidential forever. Nothing will be revealed to anyone who is outside this work. The only people who will have knowledge of it are those collecting the data, the people supporting the families, the staff of the laboratories that will make the analyses, and the families themselves”.

The purpose of this exercise, the release says, is “to allow the delivery of the remains and possessions of all the people who were on board the flight so that the families can organise the funerals of their loved ones”.

Although the collection of DNA is not invasive, psychologists are on hand to assist any family members who find the process stressful and disturbing.

Meanwhile, a mural in memory of those who died has been unveiled in an area beside the LAM headquarters. At this ceremony family members laid wreaths of white roses and other flowers. “Ths mural is a temporary arrangement to provide an immediate opportunity to thepeople who wish to pay homage to their loved ones”, LAM explains. “In due time, a permanent and definitive memorial will be erected”.

Sunday 8 December 2013

http://allafrica.com/stories/201312080109.html

Remains of 163 dead Guatemalans given to families

The remains of 163 people, who were massacred in Guatemala's civil war, have been delivered to their relatives, officials say.

On Saturday, the bodies of victims of the 1982 Dos Erres massacre were given to their families who shouldered wooden coffins and took them to a local cemetery.

The carnage took place in Dos Erres, a small village in northern Guatemala, during the decades-long civil war on December 6, 1982. It was under the military rule of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt who stands trial for genocide.

At the time of the killings, the army was searching for 40 guns stolen by a guerrilla unit the previous October.

Dos Erres was invaded since the villagers were thought to be supportive of the guerrillas.

After the exhumation of the bodies, five soldiers were found guilty for the incident and were put on trial. They were sentenced to 6,000 years in jail, although Guatemala's utmost prison term is 50 years.

A UN-backed fact-finding committee registered 669 massacres during the civil war, of which 626 were attributed to government forces.

The Guatemalan conflict began in 1960 and continued for 36 years. According to a 1999 UN-sponsored report, some 200,000 people lost their lives or went missing during the clashes.

Sunday 8 December 2013

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/12/08/338783/163-guatemalan-bodies-given-to-families/