Mass graves with remains of migrants uncovered in Texas

The most perilous part of the journey for many migrants seeking to enter the United States from central America comes not when they are on their way to the Texas border, but once they have passed it.

Falfurrias, with a population about 5,000, is 75 miles north of the border along Interstate 69-C, the main gateway to central Texas. Situated amid ranch land and an hour’s drive from the nearest big city, it might be a relatively uneventful place – were it not for its detention centre and the immigration checkpoint about 15 miles south.

Smugglers drive the immigrants near the checkpoint then let them out, to find their way around it on foot through a thorny terrain of private ranches in temperatures that often exceed 100F in summer. Some get lost and fall ill and here their journeys end, dying somewhere in the mostly-shadeless expanse of nearly 1,000 square miles that makes up Brooks County.

Despite a dramatic rise in the number of unaccompanied children trying to cross the Rio Grande river into Texas, the overall number of US border patrol apprehensions – one indicator of the flow of illegal immigration – is vastly down compared with the figures from a decade ago.

But the number of migrants found dead on ranches north of the Texas border appears to have risen in recent years. Last year 87 bodies were discovered, and 129 in 2012. Many are still unidentified.

This month, for the second successive year, scientists and students from Baylor University and the University of Indianapolis spent days exhuming the remains of unidentified migrants from a cemetery in Falfurrias. They found mass graves with remains in rubbish bags, shopping bags, or even not in containers at all, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

In one case, a single body bag contained the bones of three people.

“To me it’s just as shocking as the mass grave that you would picture in your head, and it’s just as disrespectful,” Dr Krista Latham, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Indianapolis, told the Caller-Times.

Eddie Canales, an activist with the South Texas Human Rights Center, believes the deaths are in part a consequence of the US government’s push to tighten up the border, which he says has led migrants to attempt riskier paths in their efforts to evade detection and encouraged them to pay smugglers who often have links to criminal gangs.

Canales is working with local ranchers to place 20 water stations in about a dozen locations, hoping migrants will come across them and be able to avoid the deadly consequences of severe dehydration.

“More people are getting lost,” he told the Guardian. “Migration is down but the deaths are increasing.

“Because of the policy to apprehend as many as you can, you’re forcing people to cross into areas that are very dangerous … we’re letting migrants support the cartel business of smuggling.”

Sunday 22 June 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/21/texas-mass-graves-undocumented-migrants-uncovered

Boat mishap: 14 bodies claimed, 10 bodies to be sent to Indonesia on Sunday

Nine of the 14 bodies involved in the recent boat mishap off Banting have been claimed by relatives and will be transported back to Indonesia after getting a confirmation from an Indonesian Embassy representative, at 10.40am today.

Kuala Langat district police chief, Superintendent Azman Abdul Razak, said the bodies will be transported back to Indonesia through cargo, at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at Sepang, starting tomorrow.

He said, both trips would be borne by the Indonesian government and will arrive in Aceh.

"The victims' family and friends have already identified them. The cost and anything related to the flight will be arranged by the Indonesian government.

"As requested by the Aceh Governor, a Muslim funeral service company will handle the arrangements of sending the bodies back to Aceh. Nine out of the 14 bodies will be sent tomorrow,” he told reporters today.

All nine bodies will be flown via two flights from Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Delivery of the bodies will be made after the police forensic team and the Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Klang Hospital have completed their autopsies and issued a death certificate.

Meanwhile, Supt Azman said another relative came forward on Saturday to identify and claim the body of another victim at the hospital.

The body will be sent home after all the documentation is complete.

In the meantime, the operation to recover the capsized boat at Sungai Air Hitam this morning has been postponed due to safety reasons.

"A special meeting will be conducted and will be chaired by the authorities to identify the process of how to recover the boat without affecting the investigation in determining the motive and cause of the mishap on June 17,” he said.

The location of the capsized boat has been identified and handed over to the police forensic unit for further action.

Sunday 22 June 2014

http://english.astroawani.com/news/show/boat-mishap-14-bodies-claimed-10-bodies-to-be-sent-to-indonesia-on-sunday-38141

Eight of 31 bodies from Mexico mass grave identified

Forensic experts have identified eight of the 31 bodies found this week in a clandestine grave in the southern part of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, Mexican authorities said.

Those eight people were area residents who had been reported missing.

The grave was discovered Tuesday at the El Diamante ranch in the Tres Valles region, which is on the border with Oaxaca state.

All of the bodies recovered from the grave were taken to the central forensic lab of the Veracruz state attorney general’s office, officials said.

Personnel at the lab are using dental records and DNA to identify the other 23 victims. Authorities in neighbouring Oaxaca are collaborating in that effort.

Thousands of migrants headed for the US pass through Veracruz each year, and drug traffickers use smuggling routes in the state to move narcotics into Mexico’s northern neighbour.

The federal government expanded its presence in neighbouring Tamaulipas state in May to fight the Los Zetas and Gulf drug cartels, which have unleashed a wave of violence in the region.

Veracruz’s government has stepped up patrols along the border to prevent the cartels from moving into its territory.

The state government has been working with the army and marines to hunt down the members of criminal organisations, especially those involved in kidnappings, this year.

Veracruz, Mexico’s third most populous state, has been plagued by a turf war between rival drug cartels that has sent the murder rate skyrocketing in the past few years.

The Gulf, Los Zetas and Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartels, as well as breakaway members of the once-powerful Familia Michoacana organization, are fueling the violence in the state.

The port city of Veracruz will be the site of the 24th Ibero-American Summit of heads of state and government and will host the 22nd Central American and Caribbean Games later this year.

Sunday 22 June 2014

http://www.mizonews.net/world/eight-of-31-bodies-from-mexico-mass-grave-identified/

At least 26 dead as storms hit Southern China

At least 26 people died, three were missing and some 337,000 were evacuated as summer storms brought torrential rain and flash floods to much of southern China, the government said on Sunday.

The National Meteorological Centre forecast more heavy rain in large areas of southern China on Sunday and Monday.

Seven people have died in central China's Hunan Province, five in the eastern province of Jiangxi and two in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, south of the country.

Hunan provincial civil affairs bureau confirmed that four people are missing.

In Hunan, torrential rainstorms swept across ten cities and 47 counties. About 2.08 million people in the province were affected and 171,000 have been relocated.

The rainstorms also caused severe damage to 9,700 houses and 122,700 hectares of crops. So far direct economic losses have amounted to 1.57 billion yuan (251.2 million U.S. dollars) in the province.

Highways and railways were forced to shut because of landslides on Friday. Services all resumed by Saturday morning.

In Jiangxi, four of the five deaths in the province were caused by the collapse of a school building triggered by a landslide.

Jiangxi's local bureau of civil affairs reported that about 789,000 people were affected and 123,000 have been relocated as of 10 a.m. on Saturday. Downpours have swept the province since Wednesday.

The rainstorms in Jiangxi, which have caused the collapse of or substantial damage to 4,000 houses and affected 63,100 hectares of crops, have led to direct economic losses of 530 million yuan (84.85 million U.S. dollars).

Water levels of rivers and reservoirs are above warning levels in Jiangxi and local governments have been told to fully prepare for floods.

In Guangxi, besides the two deaths, more than 118,700 people were affected and 2,341 have been relocated as of 3 p.m. on Saturday, according to the regional civil affairs department.

Heavy downpours have been wreaking havoc in east and south China during the past week, forcing authorities to initiate a grade IV emergency response on Saturday.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs and the China National Commission for Disaster Reduction have dispatched emergency response teams to the regions.

Relief materials, including tents and cotton blankets, have been sent to disaster-hit regions.

A grade IV response, the lowest in the country's emergency response system, means a 24-hour alert, daily damage reports, and dispatching money and relief materials within 48 hours.

Several dozen people perished in weather-related deaths in the region earlier this month.

Sunday 22 June 2014

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-06/21/c_133426105.htm

Police scientist wins £500k payout after developing post-traumatic stress disorder from handling bodies in the wake of the Asian tsunami

A police scientist has been awarded almost half a million pounds in compensation after he was left distressed by handling dead bodies after the Asian tsunami a decade ago.

The forensics expert helped identify some of the 230,000 victims of the disaster that engulfed Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand in 2004.

He developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after returning to the UK.

He felt let down by the police quango that employed him for not providing him with counselling after his harrowing experience.

The man, who has not been named, has been on sick leave for much of the intervening decade while pursuing his compensation claim.

Now he has received a total of £464,000 as part of a deal that will end his employment contract with the police professional body, now known as the College of Policing.

The compensation payment, one of the biggest made to a police worker, was so large that it had to be listed in the Home Office’s annual accounts, published last week.

In the section on losses and special payments, it stated: ‘A compensation payment of £464,000 was paid by the College of Policing in respect of an employee who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.’

The College of Policing, which replaced the man’s former employers, Centrex and the National Policing Improvement Agency, said: ‘In 2005, the Home Office put together a deployment of policing experts to help in the response to the Sri Lankan tsunami.

‘Following a review of the 2005 deployment the College of Policing recognises that there were matters Centrex could have dealt with better, including post-incident support.’

The forensics expert was one of about 60 police officers and civilian staff from the UK who helped out in the aftermath of the earthquake in the Indian Ocean. It is estimated that more than 230,000 people were killed in the Boxing Day disaster.

Sunday 14 June 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2664703/Police-scientist-wins-500k-payout-developing-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-handling-bodies-wake-Asian-tsunami.html

14 dead in Bulgaria flash floods as rescuers search for missing

Flash floods in Bulgaria have killed at least 14 people, including two children, with others missing after torrential rains lashed the east of the country, authorities said Friday.

The worst hit was the Asparuhovo neighborhood of the Black Sea port city of Varna, where at least 11 people including two children perished, local authorities said.

A 7-year-old child, who said he was with his sister and grandmother when the disaster hit, was rescued and taken to hospital.

Three more victims drowned in the nearby northeastern town of Dobrich and 150 people were evacuated from the lowest part of the town where the water level remained waist-high on Friday evening, an AFP photographer said.

A total of 1,200 tourists, including Germans, Russians and Britons, were evacuated — some via helicopters — from the nearby resort of Albena, resort chief Krasimir Stanev said.

Many Ukrainian children meanwhile remained blocked in their hotel in the village of Kranevo.

Dozens of smashed and piled up cars and uprooted trees littered the narrow mud-splattered streets of the worst-hit Varna neighborhood of Asparuhovo on Friday, leaving parts of the area still impassable.

The normally picturesque hillside quarter was submerged after torrential rain pounded the region on Thursday evening, clogging garbage-filled drainage canals and turning the steep streets into raging torrents.

Many rickety houses were totally destroyed by the water and authorities were unable to say whether their owners had survived even if they found no new victims buried under the ruins.

Electricity was partially restored on Friday except in the worst-affected parts where authorities refrained from switching it on due to safety concerns. Also, bad tap water quality made it unsafe for drinking.

Navy divers continued to search a canal linking Lake Varna to the Black Sea, where all the floodwater drained away, dragging with it cars, furniture, garbage and uprooted trees. Two bodies were recovered from the waters.

Soldiers and 40 prisoners helped to evacuate people throughout the day and clean up the piles of mud and garbage from the streets of Asparuhovo.

Rescue efforts have been hindered as heavy rains and hail storms continued to lash Bulgaria throughout Friday and more floods, even if not as bad, were reported in eastern and central Bulgaria.

Along with Varna and Dobrich, the central city of Veliko Turnovo also declared a state of emergency on Friday.

Forecasters said the situation was set to improve in the coming days, even if they did not exclude more rain.

Sunday 22 June 2014

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/europe/2014/06/22/410675/14-dead.htm