Death toll in western Ugandan boat accident rises to 108 people

The death toll in the weekend boat accident in western Uganda has risen to 108 from 19 that were reported on Saturday.

David Kazungu, Commissioner for Refugees in the ministry of relief, disaster preparedness and refugees told Xinhua in an interview here that 108 bodies have been retrieved from Lake Albert as of Monday afternoon.

Most of the passengers on the boat were Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) refugees returning home.

"So far on Saturday we retrieved 19 bodies from Lake Albert, on Sunday we retrieved six bodies and today by two o'clock 83 bodies have been retrieved by the police marine unit," Kazungu said.

He said the total number of the people who were on the boat is not yet known. Fourty five people survived the accident.

"The bodies are being taken by the DRC officials with whom we have been working with since Saturday on identification of the bodies and return of the bodies for decent burial," he said, adding that some bodies especially those for children have not yet been identified.

He said the refugees were returning home after the UN Intervention Brigade neutralized the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan rebel group operating in eastern DRC.

"These were returning back to Congo. This comes after the intervention forces have created peace majorly within the Kamango region. The King of Kamango area has been calling on his people to return home," he said.

He said the search for more bodies is still continuing and the chance of finding more survivors is slim.

Charles Ssebambulidde, the police commander for Uganda's Albertine region, said that rescue teams pulled scores of bodies — mostly women — from the lake over the weekend.

Lake Albert lies on the Uganda-Congo border, and most of the drowning victims were Congolese refugees returning home from a resettlement camp, according to the United Nations refugee agency and Ugandan officials.

Ssebambulidde said the authorities confirmed the boat carried more than 150 passengers as well as their belongings when it capsized. That boat, which is now in police custody, should only have carried 80 people without luggage, he said.

"This tragedy has shocked me profoundly," U.N. Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said in a statement sent from Geneva. "My thoughts are with those who have lost dear ones, and the survivors. I am grateful to the government and other actors who have mounted a rescue-and-recovery operation and are assisting the survivors."

The U.N. statement said as many as 250 people may have been aboard the boat, one of two transporting Congolese refugees returning home, suggesting the death toll could rise even further as more bodies are recovered.

Boat accidents are common in Uganda, as transport providers take advantage of lax policing to load their boats with more passengers than they can safely transport.

Ssebambulidde, the Ugandan police official, said it appeared the victims of the latest accident were so desperate to return home that they did not bother about safety. He said the boat was clearly "overloaded."

Uganda hosts more than 320,000 refugees and asylum seekers from violence-prone neighboring countries. More than 175,000 of them are Congolese, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

Tuesday 25 March 2014

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/africa/2014-03/25/c_126310046.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/uganda-boat-accident-death-toll-rises-107-23035504

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Migrants fear loved ones lost in refugee camp fire

Mount Gambier’s Karenni community is waiting anxiously for the results of DNA tests on the charred bodies of family members and friends who perished in a fire in a Thailand refugee camp.

At least 38 people were killed, 100 injured and 2000 were left without shelter when a fire broke out two weeks ago in Camp 2, where many of Mount Gambier’s Karenni refugees lived before migrating to freedom in Australia.

Khun Dee, who arrived in the Blue Lake city with his wife in 2006, is relieved to know his mother had survived, but fears he has lost friends in the blaze.

“I have spoken to my mother on the phone, so I know she is alive, but she has lost all her possessions in the fire,” he said.

“We have already applied for a visa to bring her to us in Mount Gambier, but we don’t know if the process is going to be delayed by the fire.

“I hope she can come to live here with us.”

Khun Dee lived in the camp with his family since the age of four and although most of his direct family members are now scattered around the world, he had left behind many friends he made in the 20 years he spent in the camp hiding from the cruelty of Burmese soldiers.

“There are about 3000 people in the camp and you know every one because you are not allowed to leave the camp, so we will know people that had died,” he said.

“They sent us photos, but we can’t identify the victims because they had been burnt beyond recognition.

“We will just have to wait for the results of DNA tests.”

Authorities believe the fire could have been sparked by an unattended cooking flame, but the cause has not yet been determined as investigations by the Thai police continue.

Khun Dee has made a heartfelt plea to the South East community to make a financial donation to the survivors in Camp 2.

“People in the camp are not treated like human beings and have very little possessions and now they have lost the few things they have, like food, cooking equipment and clothes,” he said.

“They also have no shelter now, which is just a roof without any walls, and it gets very cold there at night and very hot during the day.”

Khun Dee’s plea is part of an Australia-wide appeal through the Karenni Federation of Australia to raise money, which will be paid directly to the camp leader, a Karenni person who heads the camp committee and has the power to purchase the necessary items.

Tuesday 2 April 2013

http://www.borderwatch.com.au/story/1402063/migrants-fear-loved-ones-lost-in-refugee-camp-fire/?cs=1266

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Ten children still missing after Mae Surin refugee camp fire

About 10 children are still missing in the aftermath of the devastating inferno at Mae Surin refugee camp which has left 37 dead, activists say.

Ben Mendoza, director of the Catholic Office for Emergency Relief and Refugees (Coerr), said yesterday authorities and activists are still searching for the missing children.

Camp residents included 1,052 children and youth who were affected by the blaze _ 245 under five years old, and 807 aged five to 18 years old _ he told a forum on the fire held yesterday.

Christine Petrie, director of International Red Cross programmes in Thailand, said the agency wants to ensure the refugees continue to receive the same services as before the tragedy.

Local bodies and NGOs are banding together to improve fire safety measures following the fire at the camp in Khun Yuam district on Friday.

Benjawan Maliwan, field manager of Coerr, said non-profit organisations in the area would discuss with local authorities and Karenni refugee representatives ways to improve the camp's fire prevention system.

The inferno killed 37 Karen and Karenni refugees and injured more than 100 people at the camp.

Coerr runs a disaster risk reduction programme funded by the Japanese embassy since last year, offering refugees a fire prevention training course in collaboration with the Interior Ministry's Disaster Mitigation and Prevention (DMP) office in Mae Hong Son.

Firefighting apparatus such as fire extinguishers, buckets and water tanks have been stored in small fire stations in each zone of the camp.

The refugees have set up their own disaster emergency prevention committee which encourages households to prepare bags of water and sand.

On Friday, refugees rang the bell and broadcast a warning to alert the camp's members at an early stage of the fire, which started at the first house in Zone 1 of the camp. However, Ms Benjawan said the fire was more devastating than anyone expected, with factors such as strong winds hampering rescue efforts.

Solutions to improve fire prevention may include boosting human resources, increasing firefighting apparatus and changing building materials to less flammable substances.

Sawang Momdee, chief of the Mae Hong Song DMP office, said the refugee camp was located in a restricted area where delivery of aid was difficult.

Mr Sawang said permission from a provincial office must be sought to gain access to the camp.

Chanchai Srisatian, chief of Khun Yuam district office, said the office had no budget to support the refugees. "We can only provide knowledge [on preventing and managing fires] to the refugees," he said.

The master plan to improve the fire prevention and management system includes rebuilding houses with a buffer zone between each building to reduce the risk of a fire spreading quickly.

Thursday 28 March 2013

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/342679/10-children-still-missing-as-fire-safety-under-scrutiny

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Forest fire ruled out as death toll hits 37

Local forestry officials have insisted no forest fire occurred in the area that day, RFD deputy director-general Rerngchai Prayoonwet said.

Almost 40 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the blaze at Mae Surin camp, which is situated in Mae Surin forest reserve and Doi Wiang Lah wildlife sanctuary and is home to about 3,000 refugees.

Witnesses told police that they saw embers being blown by the wind land on the thatched roof of a refugee house, sparking a fire which quickly spread to other houses.

However, officials from the RFD and the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department, which oversee forest land in Khun Yuam district, believe the fire started inside the camp.

Mae Hong Son governor Naruemon Palawat said Sunday she had directed Khum Yuam police to investigate the cause of the fire.

She said while a forest fire had not been ruled out, police believed the blaze may have been caused by people cooking. Arson has been ruled out.

The fire broke out in Zone 1 and Zone 4 of the camp about 4pm and was brought under control about 6pm.

Authorities Sunday stopped searching for bodies, with the official death toll at 37 with 115 injured.

The latest casualty was a male refugee who was seriously injured and succumbed at Nakornping Hospital in Chiang Mai Sunday, Khun Yuam assistant district chief Samreong Sudsawat said.

The 37 dead victims comprise 21 males and 16 females. Ten of the dead were children. Nineteen of the injured refugees were seriously hurt.

Pol Maj Gen Chamnan Ruadraew, deputy commander of the Provincial Police Region 5, said officials were working to identify the dead. A Christian burial rite was held for the victims Sunday. More than 400 makeshift houses at the Mae Surin camp were ruined, leaving more than 2,300 refugees homeless. Two firefighters were also killed and five others seriously injured as they raced to tackle the Mae Surin blaze when the six-wheel lorry they were travelling in plunged into a ravine between kilometre markers 83 and 84 in Pai district.

The camp is one of nine refugee camps on the Thai-Myanmar border set up more than two decades ago to offer asylum to ethnic Karen fleeing the fighting between the Myanmar army and rebel troops.

Governor Naruemon said the refugees' houses will be rebuilt on their original location because a stream flows through the area year-round.

The refugees themselves also had no desire to move, she said. Construction of the houses is expected to be completed in a month.

Humanitarian assistance from the state and private sectors continues to pour in for the refugees, with officials from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees preparing food.

Soldiers from the Armed Forces Development Command have set up kitchens at Khun Yuam municipality office. More than 1,000 packets of food were taken to the camp by helicopter.

Public Health Minister Pradit Sintawanarong Sunday said the ministry had sent disease control units to curb the spread of malaria at a temporary shelter set up nearby to house the refugees left homeless by the fire.

Psychiatrists have also been sent to help refugees affected by the blaze and a team of sanitation officials has been assigned to ensure proper hygienic conditions at the shelter.

Haze and thick smoke from forest fires in the region grounded a planned helicopter trip to the stricken camp Sunday morning by a group of officials led by Interior Minister Charupong Ruangsuwan and Chatchai Promlert, director-general of the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department.

The officials had planned to fly from Chiang Mai to visit the camp.

Meanwhile, five fire fighters are in hospital after getting hurt tackling forest fires. Four are being treated at Nakornping Hospital and one is being treated at Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital.

Sunday 24 March 2013

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/342174/rfd-steps-into-blaze-row

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45 dead in refugee camp fire: Thai official

The toll from a blaze that swept through a camp in northern Thailand has risen to 45, authorities said Saturday, after hundreds of shelters for refugees from Myanmar were reduced to ashes.

Over 100 people were injured in Friday's fire, which destroyed about 400 homes at the Mae Surin camp in Mae Hong Son province, Thailand's Interior Ministry said as it updated the death toll.

Rescue workers were searching for bodies in the wreckage of the shelters at the remote mountainous camp area, according to a spokesman from the provincial authorities.

"All of (the) dead bodies I seen this morning are burnt beyond recognition," he said, adding that some 2,300 people had been left homeless by the blaze.

Aerial footage of the area shown on Thai television showed huge swathes of the camp completely incinerated.

Authorities believe the fire was sparked by an unattended cooking flame.

A local district official said hot weather, combined with strong winds had caused the fire to spread quickly among the thatched bamboo shelters.

Women, children and the elderly are believed to make up the majority of the victims.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said it was rushing to provide plastic sheets, bed mats and other resources to make emergency shelters.

"We are deeply saddened by this tragic incident and doing what we can to provide instant relief," said the UNHCR's Thailand representative Mireille Girard in a statement.

The Interior Ministry's Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Bureau said a school, clinic and two food warehouses had also been destroyed.

The Thai government pledged an investigation into the fire at the camp, which was set up in 1992 and houses roughly 3,500 refugees.

Ten camps strung out along the Thai-Myanmar border are home to a total of about 130,000 people, who first began arriving in the 1980s.

Many of the refugees have fled conflict zones in ethnic areas of Myanmar, also known as Burma.

Families often live cheek-by-jowl in simple bamboo-and-thatch dwellings.

Many of the camp's residents have been registered with the UN as refugees, and an ongoing resettlement programme has allowed tens of thousands to move to other countries.

After a new quasi-civilian government replaced the long-ruling junta in Myanmar two years ago, Thailand announced it wanted to shut the border camps, raising concern among their residents.

But so far they have been allowed to stay and the Thai government has stressed that it will only send them back when it is safe to do so.

Many of the refugees are from Myanmar's eastern Karen state, where a major rebel group, the Karen National Union (KNU) signed a ceasefire deal with the new regime last year after decades of civil war.

Vast numbers of people fled the former Myanmar junta's counter-insurgency campaign, which rights groups say deliberately targeted civilians, driving them from their homes, destroying villages and forcing them to work for the army.

Years of war have left the Karen region littered with landmines while development has been held back, leaving dilapidated infrastructure and threadbare education and health services.

Ten camps strung out along the Thai-Myanmar border house a total of about 130,000 people, who first began arriving in the 1980s.

Many of the refugees have fled conflict zones in ethnic areas of Myanmar, also known as Burma.

The density of the housing and lack of firefighting equipment mean large numbers of shelters are often destroyed, but Friday's death toll was unusually high.

Hundreds of homes were destroyed at a different border camp in February last year by a fire that the authorities also blamed on cooking.

Saturday 23 March 2013

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130323/45-dead-refugee-camp-fire-thai-official

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