Bosnia-Hercegovina marks 20th anniversary of war

Ceremonies in Sarajevo are marking 20 years since the start of the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, a conflict that saw the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II.

The conflict began in April 1992 as part of the break-up of Yugoslavia.

About 100,000 people were killed and nearly half the population forced from their homes in four years of fighting.

Red chairs fill the street in Sarajevo where the conflict began - 11,541, one for each victim in the city.

People have been placing white flowers on some of the chairs as they walk alongside them.

A teddy bear, toys and schoolbooks have been placed on some of the small chairs which symbolise children killed during the four-year long siege by Serb forces.

Sarajevans were asked to stop what they were doing at 12:00 GMT for an hour to mark the start of the conflict.

'They loved Sarajevo'

Many have been walking past the chairs, which stretch for 800m (half a mile) along the central street in Sarajevo named after the founder of Yugoslavia, Marshal Tito.

On a stage in front of the chairs, a choir with a small classical orchestra has been performing songs, many of them composed during the siege.

"Those people gave their lives for the freedom of this town. They loved this town. They were killed just because they were citizens of this town, because they were at their homes, at their schools, at their playgrounds," concert organiser Haris Pasovic is quoted as saying.

The Reuters news agency says the autonomous Serb area of the country is ignoring the anniversary of the start of the fighting.

For three years and eight months in the early 1990s, Sarajevo was a city under siege. The mainly Muslim population took cover, as Serb gunners barraged the city from the hills surrounding it.

The worst single atrocity during the war was at Srebrenica, in eastern Bosnia, in July 1995. Bosnian Serb forces, led by General Ratko Mladic, overran what should have been a UN safe haven. About 8,000 Muslim men and boys were taken away and killed.

As a result the UN changed the mandate for its mission and allowed force to be used.

But the war in Bosnia was a three-way mix, involving Serbs, Croats and Muslims.

The European Union's special representative to Bosnia, Peter Sorenson, says that during the war, trust and relations between people were simply destroyed. All of this, ­he says, can never be forgotten or "wiped away".

The BBC's Genc Lamani says that the aspirations for a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Bosnia have not yet become a reality. Many people in Bosnia believe the war was too high a price to pay for such hopes, our correspondent says.

6 April 2012

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17636640

continue reading

Nato fuel tanker blaze kills seven in Afghanistan

KANDAHAR: Seven people were burnt to death in southern Afghanistan on Friday when a fuel tanker supplying a Nato base crashed and set their vehicle on fire, officials said.

The security chief of Panjwayi district and the Kandahar police chief said there was no insurgent activity at the time, and residents later pulled back from claims that the Taliban had attacked with rocket-propelled grenades.

A US soldier serving in Nato’s US-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) was charged this month with 17 counts of murder following a killing spree in the same district of Kandahar province on March 11.

Sardar Mohammad, Panjwayi’s security chief, told AFP: “A fuel tanker supplying fuel for Isaf overturned and caught fire, and simultaneously a civilian minivan was passing nearby also set ablaze.”

Seven people were killed and three others who were injured were taken to hospital, he said.

Abdul Hakim, who lives opposite the crash site, told AFP he heard a loud bang when the tanker overturned, and a passing vehicle was set on fire by the blaze.

Kandahar police chief Abdul Raziq confirmed the death toll, telling AFP: “This fuel tanker was coming from the city of Kandahar to Panjwayi district at high speed.

“On its way this tanker overturned and caught fire,” he said. “A civilian minivan was passing on the way and the vehicle was also set ablaze.”

Friday, 06 April 2012

http://www.somoso.com/news/nato-fuel-tanker-blaze-kills-seven-in-afghanistan/

continue reading

Fiji's flood death toll rises to 7

SUVA, April 6 (Xinhua) -- Fiji's flood death toll rose to seven on Friday after the discovery of two more bodies.

Police spokeswoman Ana Naisoro said the police found a middle aged man's body floating in the Waimanu River near Nausori.

At Tunalia Bridge in the western tourist town of Nadi, the body of 61-years-old villager Jolame Vou Sayabo was also found, who was believed to be drowned after he got stuck in a culvert whilst swimming with family members.

Naisoro said the two bodies are now at local hospitals for a post mortem examination.

Earlier this week, a three-year-old boy of Komave village in Sigatoka died while playing near a creek, and the body of a 31- year-old man was also found at Johnson Road in Lautoka.

On Sunday the body of a man was retrieved from the Nadi River, while a 20-year-old male's body and an unidentified man's body were retrieved on Friday in different areas in the country's west.

Meanwhile, three boys are still believed to be missing, who were on a fishing boat last Tuesday but failed to return as expected on Friday.

According to Nadi's Special Administrator Aisea Tuidraki, damages to businesses in the tourist town are estimated to cost around 200 million Fiji dollars (about 115 million U.S. dollars) .

Meanwhile, it is a bleak Easter weekend for about 13,300 flood- affected people still at the 200 evacuation centres in Fiji's Western and Central divisions.

Friday, 06 April 2012

http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-04/06/c_131511456.htm

continue reading

Suicide bombers in Pakistan receive no death rituals

Suicide bombers who believe they will go to paradise are mistaken, Pakistani religious scholars say.

"Suicide bombers are the most unfortunate people on the surface of the earth, as they are neither bathed nor buried," as ordinary Muslims are when they die, said Maulana Aminullah Shah in Par Hoti Mardan.

Shah, a prayer leader in Mohallah New Islamabad, Par Hoti, Mardan, said he felt sorry for Rehmanullah, a 17-year-old suicide bomber who attacked Afghan and coalition forces last September and was buried without a funeral prayer.

Rehmanullah's father, Ghufran Khan, a day labourer, continues to grieve over his son's death, saying the Taliban kidnapped and brainwashed him. He never got to see his son's body or to bury it, and remains uncertain of his son's fate.

Some escape militant clutches

Saifullah, another boy from the same area, had to flee for his life when the Taliban accused him of informing intelligence agencies after senior al-Qaeda operative Abu Faraj Al-Libbi was captured in Mardan in May 2005.

"The Taliban failed to abduct Saifullah, and finally he landed in Germany," said his father. "I know the Taliban would have used my son as suicide bomber ... he would have missed a bath, funeral and burial, which are important rituals for Muslims."

Ajmal Shah, a prayer leader in Daudzai, Peshawar, is blunt about the importance of those rituals.

"The act of suicide bombing is condemnable. All those blowing themselves up and killing innocent Muslims will not find a place in paradise as they had been promised by their trainers," he said of the promises the Taliban use to lure teenage boys into becoming suicide bombers.

Taliban brainwashing tools

Taliban recruiters kidnap or lure under-educated, jobless youth, using literature and videos to brainwash them into committing terrorism. They never tell the youths that they lose their birthright to a Muslim burial and funeral rituals.

They also misinterpret the Qur'anic description of paradise.

"It is a great (tragedy), those teenagers who think they invite the pleasure of Almighty Allah after committing suicide attacks," Shah told Central Asia Online. "In reality, they will face the wrath of Allah."





Ajmal Shah, (above) a prayer leader, said suicide bombers do not enter paradise, despite their handlers' promises, said. [Ashfaq Yusufzai]


"There is no disputing that suicide attacks are not allowed in Islam," he said. "Those disobeying divine commandments and opting to become suicide bombers ... land in hell."

Playing on the youths' religious sentiments, the recruiters call those targeted 'infidels' and issue decrees sentencing them to death. Families who grieve for their missing boys are told by trainers they have become "martyrs".

An ignoble end for bombers

Authorities treat the remains of bombing victims with care, said Dr. Shiraq Qayum, head of the Lady Reading Hospital Accidents and Emergency Department, observing that workers will exhume and re-bury initially unidentified victims when DNA techniques yield their names.

The remains of suicide bombers, however, are treated differently.

"… We never bury the remains of suicide bombers ... [we] just use them for forensic purposes," he said of Pakistan as a whole.

Suicide bombers do not merit a funeral because the public despises their acts, Qayum said. The contempt for bombers' remains is even more striking when compared to how Pakistanis' hold funerals in absentia for relatives who died abroad and whose bodies cannot be repatriated, he added.

"Assaying the role of suicide bomber means abandoning Islam, which clearly states that killing one person amounts to killing the entire humanity," said Rahimullah, a resident of Shabqadar and father of Qari Naqibullah, a 19-year-old Pakistani suicide bomber who killed 10 coalition soldiers in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in March, 2011.

A resident of Surkh Dheri Charsadda, Wahidullah, disappeared in January 2008. Two months later, a group of Taliban militants informed his elderly father, Juma Gul, that his son the "martyr" had gone to paradise.

"First, I did not believe it when the Taliban walked into the mosque early one morning," the father told centralasiaonline.com. "To my displeasure, they kept congratulating me, but I am still cursing them for my son's act."

Wahidullah's father had to mourn his son alone. "Offering condolences ... is an important act of kindness, displayed by the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and his followers, but I am very unlucky that I did not receive a single mourner over the death of my lone son," he said. "The people disapprove of suicide attacks; therefore, nobody offered me condolences."

Such deaths cause agony for parents, who have no hope Allah will extend mercy to their sons who blew themselves up and violated Islamic injunctions, he said.

Nobody ever says anything merciful like "May God bless him" or "God rest his soul" for suicide attackers, adding to their families' pain, Juma Gul added.

While suicide is forbidden by Islam, those who kill only themselves often receive the ritual washing, prayer and burial from their relatives. But the bodies of suicide bombers who kill others, go unclaimed and are denied the rituals in accordance with Islamic teachings, Shah and others said.

Another slight that suicide bombers suffer haunts their families forever. Since nobody will bury them, relatives and friends have no grave to visit for the purpose of seeking advice and contemplating the hereafter.

Thurs, 05 April 2012

http://mawtani.com/cocoon/iii/xhtml/en_GB/features/iii/features/iraqtoday/2012/04/05/feature-02

continue reading

8 dead, scores injured in Nairobi landslide

NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 4 – At least eight people were killed and nine others seriously wounded on Wednesday when massive boulders crushed houses in Mathare after a night of heavy rains.

Most families were asleep when the boulders fell from an overhanging cliff, trapping many of them before others were rescued and rushed to the Kenyatta National Hospital. Nine victims were admitted to the country’s largest referral hospital.

“Eight people have died out of this disaster. Six of the bodies were retrieved from under the rubble. Another died on the way to hospital while the eighth died in hospital,” a police officer involved in the rescue operation told Capital FM News late on Wednesday.

Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere had told journalists at the scene that they believed more bodies were trapped in the debris.

“From the information we are receiving, there are people trapped under this rubble that is why we want to clear the site and confirm,” Iteere told journalists before rescuers retrieved three bodies.

Hopes of retrieving any more people alive diminished late in the afternoon after the site was cleared.

Bulldozers from the Transport Ministry, National Youth Service (NYS) and another one called from a company constructing the Thika Highway helped clear the site.

“There are six bodies which have been retrieved from the rubble. We do not believe that there are any more bodies here,” the head of the disaster management team Vincent Anami said.

Rescuers comprising the military, police and National Youth Service assisted by Kenya Red Cross volunteers used bare hands to sift through the massive rubble in search of survivors, after residents insisted that there were at least 10 missing persons.

The Red Cross said more than 40 houses were destroyed in the sprawling slum when huge boulders came crashing as residents slept while others were preparing to leave for their work places.

A witness who survived the early morning disaster recounted to Capital FM News how massive rocks crumbled and flattened shanty houses right next to his door step.

“I was asleep when I heard a loud blast and thought it was a thunderstorm. I immediately heard screams and people shouting… there was confusion all over when I went outside and it was now upon each person to save their life,” Kennedy Thuku who has lived in the slum for 17 years selling boiled eggs said. “I thank God for being alive today because most of those dead are people I know.”

Residents wailed and shouted as bulldozers roared to the scene lifting heavy rocks to enable rescuers check for bodies underground.
“I don’t like when I see this! What if that bulldozer is moving on top of trapped people?” one resident said in the early hours of Wednesday when the rescue operation had just began.
There was poor coordination at the site earlier in the morning as police and NYS personnel grappled with little equipment to try to retrieve bodies, assisted by hundreds of slum youth who easily volunteered to help with their bare hands despite the heavy downpour.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga later visited the scene and announced that the military was on their way with better equipment and machinery.

“The military is coming to assist in the operation. It is very unfortunate that we have lost innocent people in the disaster,” the premier said, amid cheers of Baba! Baba! (father) from the crowd.

He announced that a team had been set up at the Special Programs Ministry to help resettle families displaced by the disaster.

Apart from families whose houses were flattened by rocks in the early morning disaster, there are those whose houses were destroyed by the rescue team to pave way for the heavy machinery to access the scene.

Nairobi Provincial Commissioner Njoroge Ndirangu said people living on disaster prone areas across the city will be moved forcefully to avoid a repeat of the Wednesday incident.
“This is an order, and it is going to happen, all these people are going to be moved. We know they will resist but we are well prepared for the exercise,” Ndirangu said.

Heavy rains have begun pounding several Kenyan regions at the start of the main rainy season, which often causes floods and massive displacement.

Wedn, 4 April 2012

http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2012/04/3-dead-scores-trapped-in-mathare-landslide/

continue reading

At least six dead in rain-ravaged Haiti

AFP - At least six people, including a child, were killed in Haiti when their homes collapsed during heavy rains that have ravaged Haiti for several days, the Civil Protection Office said Friday.

The victims were members of two families living in a neighborhood erected on a hill in the Petionville suburb of the capital.

Nadia Lochard of Haiti's Civil Protection Office said that three women, two men and a girl died "when their homes collapsed as they were carried away in a mudslide."

"It was difficult to find their bodies buried under much mud," she told AFP.

Three more bodies were also found in another neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, but the authorities could not confirm whether they had been killed by the rains.

Several neighborhoods of the capital were flooded and streets were heavily damaged following the rains still hitting Haiti.

The humanitarian community launched a plea for urgent help to obtain funds for the needy still living in often squalid camps over two years after a devastating 2010 quake.

Over half a million Haitians still live in camps for the displaced, where they are threatened by flooding at the start of a rainy season that has already ravaged streets and roads.

31 March 2012

http://www.france24.com/en/20120331-least-six-dead-rain-ravaged-haiti

continue reading

Compensation at last for Punjab killings

The National Human Rights Commission, which went through 2,097 cases of killing of youth and mass cremation of their bodies by the Punjab Police during the peak of militancy in the State, has ordered a relief of Rs.27.94 crore to the families of 1,513 victims of such extra-judicial killings. The remaining bodies were not identified.

When terrorism was at its peak in the State during 1984-96, Punjab Police personnel, whether officers or constables, were a law unto themselves and many of them were involved in merciless killing of youth by branding them as terrorists for rewards and promotions. The bodies were silently cremated with no questions asked.

The Commission took up the cases after the Supreme Court referred the matter to it on December 12, 1996. The Court said any compensation awarded by the Commission shall be binding and payable.

The cases related to mass cremations in Amritsar, Majitha and Tarn Taran districts alone between 1984 and 1994. These include 195 cases where the victims were in deemed police custody and 1,318 others whose bodies were cremated by the police. A total of 532 bodies remained unidentified despite efforts by the Commission from the date of remittance in December 1996.

The Commission held that for violation of human rights of a total of 194 victims admittedly in police custody immediately prior to their death and their cremation, their kin were entitled to monetary compensation of Rs.2.5 lakh each. For the remaining cases, the families were paid Rs.1.75 lakh each.

Excessive powers

Human rights activists world over had alleged that the inhuman killings were the result of excessive powers given to the police by the government. Many civil rights lawyers and activists paid with their lives for treading the path of political justice. While the official figures put the total number of people killed in Punjab during 1984-1996 at 15,000, according to various investigating agencies and human rights groups more than 25,000 people were killed by the Punjab Police. They include persons “missing” from their homes, killed in “encounters”, cremated as “unidentified” and “escaped from police custody”.

According to civil rights groups, boys were picked up from their homes or fields and taken blindfolded to isolated places and told to run. A burst of AK-47 rifle-fire ended their lives. Such was the terror that no one dared ask why not even a single member of the police force was hit in cross-fire. Many members of the police force in Punjab got out-of-turn promotions, gallantry awards and monetary rewards for killing “militants”.

Tuesday, 3 April 2012

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/article3279093.ece

continue reading

Mass cremation of un-identified / un-claimed bodies by Punjab police in the police districts of Majitha, Tarn Taran and Amritsar.

New Delhi: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has ordered Rs 27.94 crore as monetary relief to the families of 1,513 people who were killed and cremated during militancy period in Punjab.

The order comes as NHRC investigated the "illegal killing and disappearances" which culminated in the cremation of 2,097 bodies in Amritsar, Majitha and Tarn Taran districts between 1984 and 1994.

The case is known Punjab Mass Cremation case. Of the 2,097 cases, only 1,513 could be identified.

"The NHRC has recommended a total of Rs 27.94 crore as monetary relief to the next of kin of 1,513 deceased whose bodies could be identified out of cases of unidentified 2,097 bodies which were remitted to the Commission by the Supreme Court, popularly known as the Punjab Mass Cremation case," an NHRC spokesperson said.

These include 195 cases, where the deceased were in deemed police custody and 1,318 others whose bodies were cremated by the police. 532 bodies remained unidentified despite the best efforts made by the Commission, from the date of remittance in December 1996.

The Supreme Court had referred the matter to NHRC on December 12, 1996 saying any compensation awarded by the Commission shall be binding and payable.

Since then, the spokesperson said, the Commission heard the matter from time to time and through its proceedings on October 10, 2006, it found that out of the total 2,097 bodies which were cremated in the three districts of Amritsar, Majitha and Tarn Taran, 1245 bodies had been identified.

The Commission held that for the violation of human rights of a total of 194 deceased admittedly in police custody immediately prior to their death and their cremation, their next of kin were entitled to monetary compensation of Rs 2.50 lakh each. Regarding 1,051 other identified deceased persons whose bodies were not in police custody but cremated by the state without following Punjab Police Rules, the Commission awarded monetary relief of Rs 1.75 lakh to their families.

For the identification of the remaining 814 bodies, excluding some duplicate names, the Commission appointed Justice K S Bhalla, a retired judge of Punjab and Haryana High Court for receiving evidence and conducting an inquiry to fix the identity of as many dead bodies, as possible out of the 814 unidentified deceased persons.

Justice Bhalla, submitted a report in June 2007 mentioning that the Committee had been able to identify 143 deceased persons.

For facilitating identification of the remaining dead bodies, the Commission constituted another Committee comprising D S Bains IAS, Virender Singh, district and sessions judge (retired) and DIG Border Range, Amritsar as members.

The Bains Committee on March 22 submitted its final report which mentions that the Committee has been able to identify 125 bodies during the sittings sittings.

The spokesperson said the Commission on the March 27 considered the report and recommended monetary relief of Rs 1.75 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased identified by the committee.

Tuesday, 03 Apr 2012

http://post.jagran.com/relief-fund-ordered-for-victims-kin-1333476869

continue reading

Oakland mourns victims of deadly campus shooting

OAKLAND, Calif. — Civic and religious leaders pleaded for an end to violence in Oakland after seven people were gunned down at a small Christian college by a suspect who police say was angry about being expelled and teased for his poor English skills.

Several hundred friends, family and community members gathered for a multicultural prayer vigil Tuesday night to mourn the victims of the nation's biggest campus shooting since the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre.

Six students and a receptionist were killed and three others were wounded when the gunman went on a shooting rampage Monday morning at Oikos University, an Oakland school founded to help Korean immigrants adjust to life in America and launch new careers.

"Only God knows the meaning of the suffering we endure," Dr. Woo Nam Soo, the university's vice president, said in Korean during the church service. "In this unbearable tragedy and suffering, only God can create something good out of it."

Shortly after the deadly shooting spree, police arrested 43-year-old nursing student One Goh at a supermarket a few miles from campus.

The South Korea native is being held without bail on suspicion of seven counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder and other charges. He is expected to make his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon.

Since his arrest, emerging details of Goh's life suggest a troubled man who has been struggling to deal with personal and family difficulties over the past decade.

Romie John Delariman, an Oikos nursing instructor who knew the suspect and victims, said Goh got good grades, but he used to boast about violence and told a story about beating someone up who tried to mug him in San Francisco.

"I don't know if you could call it mentally unstable, but sometimes he would brag that he was capable of hurting people," Delariman said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Delariman said Goh was one of his most eager students, but he felt disrespected by his younger classmates.

"He said he was too old to go school with all the young people, and he said all his classmates were mean to him," Delariman said.

Police have released little background information about Goh, other than to say he had become a U.S. citizen.

Though records list an Oakland address for Goh in 2004, he lived for most of the decade in Virginia, where a mentally ill student fatally shot 32 people at Virginia Tech before turning the gun on himself.

Next-door neighbors in Gloucester County recalled him as being very quiet, but said he would speak if they spoke first. Goh kept to himself to the point that neighbor Thomas Lumpkin, 70, never learned Goh's name.

"He was always well-dressed, nicely shaved, and his hair nicely cut," he said.

Online records in the two Virginia localities show that, while Goh was there, he racked up tens of thousands of dollars in liens and judgments, including a $10,377 debt to SunTrust Bank in 2006.

The Internal Revenue Service also issued tax liens against him in 2006 and 2009 totaling more than $23,000, though he apparently paid about $14,000 back in 2008, according to records.

Capital One sued him for $985.96 on an unpaid credit card bill, plus court costs, according to Gloucester County Court records. The court issued a judgment against him on Dec. 9, 2011.

His brother was an Army sergeant stationed in Germany who died in a March 2011 car crash while attending Special Forces selection training in Virginia, according to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

The same year, Goh's mother died in South Korea, where she had moved, her former Oakland neighbors told the San Francisco Chronicle.

It's unclear how Goh earned a living before he became a nursing student at the tiny private school of about 100 students. But in January, Goh found himself expelled. Oikos officials have not said publicly what led to his expulsion.

According to the school's disciplinary policy, dismissal can come if a student threatens or harms someone or school property. "Because Oikos functions as a community of believers, students are to demonstrate a respectful attitude in all encounters," it states.

The school kicked Goh out for unspecified behavioral problems and because he had "anger management" issues, according to Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan.

People at the school "disrespected him, laughed at him," Jordan said. "They made fun of his lack of English speaking skills. It made him feel isolated compared to the other students."

Around 10:30 a.m. Monday, after planning the attack for weeks, Goh arrived at the school in an industrial park near Oakland's airport, police said. Upon entering the building, Goh was intent on finding a female school administrator who wasn't there, Jordan said.

Goh then accosted the receptionist, marching her to a classroom, he said.

Goh "started ordering people to stand up, started yelling at them," the police chief said. "They started freaking out. He asked them to line up. Some did, some didn't, and that's when he began to shoot."

By the time police arrived, five of the victims were already dead. Two died later in the day at the hospital.

Goh appeared to have selected his victims at random and none were his alleged tormentors. So far, Goh has not shown any remorse, investigators said,

Those killed in the shooting have been identified as Katleen Ping, 24, of Oakland; Lydia Sim, 21, of Hayward; Bhutia Tshering, 38, of San Francisco; Sonam Choedon, 33, of El Cerrito; Judith Seymore, 53, of San Jose; Kim Eunhea, 23, of Union City; and Doris Chibuko, 40, of San Leandro.

At Oakland's Allen Temple Baptist Church on Tuesday night, Mayor Jean Quan joined pastors from the Bay Area's Korean Christian community in calling unity and peace in their often troubled city.

"America has to look into its soul," Quan told the audience. "This is America where you can find a gun easier than you can find mental health services."

Among those attending the service were friends of Ping, the slain receptionist who came to the U.S. from the Philippines in 2007 and leaves behind a 4-year-old son, according to her family.

Bev Concepcion, a nursing instructor who often had lunch with Ping, was supposed to teach a class Monday morning, but the receptionist told her to teach the evening class instead. Concepcion said she's still not sure why, but that last-minute change may have saved her life.

"She's a very sweet young lady, very hard working and family-oriented," Conception said after Tuesday's service. "It's so sad. It's very tragic, very painful. She's my very, very close friend and now she's gone."

April 4, 2012

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501363_162-57409070/oakland-mourns-victims-of-deadly-campus-shooting/

continue reading

Casualties reported in Mogadishu blast; bodies carried out of Somali National Theater on stretchers

MOGADISHU, Somalia - A suicide blast during a ceremony at Somalia's newly reopened national theatre on Wednesday killed at least 10 people, including two of the country's top sports officials, officials said.

Ali Muse, the head of Mogadishu's ambulance service, said at least 10 people were killed and dozens wounded.

The dead included the president of Somalia's Olympic committee and the president of its soccer federation, according to Shafici Mohyadin, the federation's secretary.

A survivor of the blast said he feared few inside the theatre escaped death or injury. The witness, Zakariye Osman, said he counted at least eight dead bodies. Osman's clothes were covered in blood as he spoke outside the theatre.

Policeman Abdimalik Hassan said government officials and other dignitaries attended the ceremony. Muse said the wounded included the country's national planning minister.

The national theatre reopened for the first time in 20 years on March 19 with a concert featuring musicians playing guitars and drums. Wednesday's ceremony was held to mark the first anniversary of the start of a national TV station.

Al-Shabab militants were largely pushed out of Mogadishu last year by African Union troops, and a period of relative peace has descended on Mogadishu, allowing sports leagues, restaurants and even a little night life to flourish.

Despite those advances, al-Shabab has continued to carry out suicide and roadside bomb attacks, sometimes with devastating effect. Last October militants detonated a truck loaded with fuel drums at a government ministry gate, killing more than 100 people.

Wedn, 4 April 2012

http://www.globaltvbc.com/world/suicide+blast+in+somalia+national+theatre+during+ceremony+deaths+injuries+feared/6442614539/story.html

continue reading

Police submits a fresh list of unmarked graves found across the Kashmir valley to State Human Rights Commission (SHRC)

Srinagar, Apr 1: Police has submitted a fresh list of unmarked graves found across the Kashmir valley to State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) and exercise of counting of such graves had been carried out under an “Internal Administrative Order (IAO).”

Under the preview of the order, all the district Senior Superintendent of Police (SSPs) were directed by their higher ups to find out the details ad number of the unmarked graves in their respective districts.

The order was passed soon after expose by the investigating wing of SHRC that there are 2156 unidentified bodies buried at 38 sites in Jammu and Kashmir. The expose created uproar in political, human rights and civil society circles.

Director General of Police (DGP) Kuldeep Khoda told Greater Kashmir that a fresh list of unmarked graves has been submitted to SHRC. “Counting of such graves was carried out throughout the Valley. We have submitted the fresh list to SHRC,” DGP said. However he did not divulge the exact number graves found across the Kashmir valley.

In Baramulla district of north Kashmir, 421 such graves have been found. A senior police official from Baramulla told Greater Kashmir on the basis of anonymity that they carried out the documentation of mass graves in border town of Uri, Bijhama, Sheeri, Pattan, Gulmarg and Boniyar areas of the district.

“Our investigating teams found a total number of 421 unidentified persons buried in these unmarked graves,” the police officer said adding that the teams also found the graves 523 identified militants in these areas.

If reports are to be believed, the cops have been seen visiting graveyards in the rural areas before the last snowfall and they were trying to ascertain the facts about marked and unmarked graves.

The exercise according police sources was carried out jointly by the cops of respective police stations in their areas and CID people. The exercise has also been carried out in frontier district of Kupwara and Bandipora.

In Kupwara district, there are reportedly many such graveyards where identified and unidentified militants are buried. One in Lolab area of Kalaroos and other in Kralopra are said to be biggest ones. On number third is a graveyard in Handwara town.

According to sources, in Kalaroos most militants killed in encounters at LoC in Machil sector were being buried. While as at Kralpora graveyard those killed in Keran and Chowkibal sectors of LoC were buried. All these areas are claimed to be strategic from infiltration point of view.

Sunday, 1 April 2012

http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2012/Apr/2/police-submit-fresh-list-to-shrc-22.asp

continue reading

Vietnam finds mass grave of communist soldiers

HANOI, Vietnam — A mass grave has been found containing the remains of 23 communist soldiers believed to have been killed during the Tet Offensive, seen by many as the turning point of the Vietnam War.

Col. Nguyen Minh Hung of provincial military command in central Khanh Hoa province said Tuesday that construction workers who were expanding a highway found the site last week. He says it took 30 soldiers and militiamen six days to recover the remains, none of which were identified.

The soldiers were believed to have been killed while withdrawing after attacking an airport and the local military headquarters of the Saigon government, he said.

Thousands of Viet Cong guerrillas attacked major towns across southern Vietnam during the Tet Offensive in January 1968.

Monday, 2 April 2012

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/apr/02/vietnam-finds-mass-grave-of-communist-soldiers/?ap

continue reading

Moscow market fire kills 15 migrant workers

MOSCOW: Fifteen people died Tuesday when a night time fire tore through a two-story Moscow market warehouse in which migrant workers from a former Soviet republic were camping out.

"We have found another body and now there are 15," a Moscow emergencies ministry spokesman told AFP.

'They were migrant workers. We are trying to confirm which (ex-Soviet) republic they came from."

Unconfirmed news reports said the migrants were from the impoverished Central Asian nation of Tajikistan. Numerous Moscow markets employ cheap laborers from the region without giving them proper housing or pay.

The blaze broke out early Tuesday at the market on the southern outskirts of the city called Kachalovsky. Officials said it took two hours to put out.

Emergency workers described squalid living conditions in which the workers slept on hard cots that were stacked on top of each other in rows of four without any direct access to the outside.

The workers "lived in a metal annex that was equipped with a space heater", an unnamed law enforcement official told the Interfax news agency.

"They slept in frighteningly tight conditions, on hard bunk cots that were then stacked on top of each other," he said.

Another official said the workers probably left the space heater on all night to stay warm during the frigid Moscow spring. Overnight temperatures plunged below freezing and much of central Russia has been hit by snow.

Russia's Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu demanded an immediate account of how the workers ended up living in a space the market had reserved for storing hardware supplies.

"This is turning into a tradition -- people living in markets," Shoigu said in televised remarks.

"Someone must have settled them there. This facility was completely unsuitable for housing. I ask the law enforcement official to look into this."

The migration service estimates that there are 700,000 Tajiks living officially in the country -- a tenth of their home country's population of just under seven million.

Tajikistan was wracked by a brutal civil war in the early 1990s and then experienced nearly two decades of ethnic tensions and endemic drugs trafficking that hampered sustainable growth.

Its economy remains in tatters and some analysts estimate that up to half of Tajikistan's young male population is currently trying to make a living in Moscow and other major Russian cities.

The overwhelming majority of the migrants who arrive in Moscow do so without acquiring the official city worker permits that the Russian capital has required since Soviet times.

Their employment is therefore never officially reported to the authorities and many end up living in Moscow apartment block basements or makeshift residences.

Seven migrants were killed in January 2009 when a fire swept through an underground Moscow garage they were building and had also used as a temporary living shelter.

Another seven died in May 2011 when a fire engulfed an old abandoned building in central Moscow.

The presence of Central Asian nationals and workers from the predominantly Muslim Caucasus region has also stirred racial tensions in the Russian capital and resulted in repeated deadly attacks.

President-elect Vladimir Putin had vowed to reinforce migration controls while serving as prime minister for the past four years and won a strong following from Russian nationalists while heading the Kremlin in 2000-2008.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/International/2012/Apr-03/169033-moscow-market-fire-kills-15-migrant-workers.ashx#ixzz1qxoX2uzq

Tues, 3 April 2012

continue reading

Titanic archive - identification and disposition of victims

http://www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/titanic/list.asp?Search=

continue reading

Tragic story of the Titanic one of many to touch Atlantic Canadians

HALIFAX - His was the fourth body pulled from the icy North Atlantic days after the Titanic sank in 1912.

Sidney Leslie Goodwin was only 19 months old when he died. The little English boy is buried in the north end of Halifax.

Though he wasn't the youngest Titanic passenger to perish, his story serves as a poignant reminder that in the weeks after the sinking, crews from four ships — most of them sailors from Halifax — volunteered to perform the grim task of recovering bodies left bobbing on the cold ocean.

History shows that the residents of Atlantic Canada have so often risen to the occasion at times of tragedy that their willingness to help others has become a threadbare cliche.
But like all cliches, this one contains a hard kernel of truth.

For more than a century before the Titanic disaster, the region suffered through countless shipwrecks, major fires, coal mining tragedies and all manner of natural disasters.
In early October 1853, for example, a fierce storm off the north coast of P.E.I. was blamed for sinking about 100 fishing schooners, claiming up to 400 lives. To this day, the Yankee Gale is considered the worst disaster in the Island's history.

On April 1, 1873 — almost 40 years before the Titanic foundered on its maiden voyage — another state-of-the-art White Star Line passenger ship, the SS Atlantic, went aground and sank just west of Halifax, taking more than 500 souls with her. It was one of the worst civilian maritime disasters of the 19th century. Close to 300 of the victims are buried in mass graves near Lower Prospect. N.S.

By the time the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, residents of the Maritimes and Newfoundland were well acquainted with large-scale disasters, which helps explain why the people of Halifax worked tirelessly to recover the dead and comfort surviving relatives.

"The citizens of Halifax were so moved by it, and they came out in large numbers," says Paul Butler of St. John's, N.L., author of "Titanic's Ashes," a recently published fictional account of the aftermath of the ship's demise. "Being at the mercy of the ocean ... is central to people who have a maritime connection."

Published accounts from the time say the recovery of Titanic victims was physically and emotionally draining, particularly for those who found Goodwin, a fair-haired child whose entire family perished in the sinking.

"He came floating toward us with a little upturned face," John Snow Jr., an embalmer aboard the Mackay-Bennett, told the Halifax Herald after the telegraph-cable ship returned to port, having recovered 306 bodies — 116 of which were buried at sea because they were badly disfigured.
A total of 150 Titanic victims are buried in three Halifax graveyards, their bodies prepared by 40 embalmers from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

It's hard to conceive that anything good could come from taking part in such gruesome tasks, but Bob Conrad thinks otherwise.

In September 1998, Conrad was among a group of Nova Scotia fishermen who joined the search for survivors after a Swissair passenger jet caught fire and crashed into St. Margarets Bay, west of Halifax.

None of the 229 people aboard survived, but Conrad didn't know that as he used a powerful light on his boat to scan a horrific debris field reeking of jet fuel and littered with ghastly array of shredded luggage, clothing and body parts.

At one point, he thought he spotted a child's doll. But as he drew closer, he realized the small figure was that of a toddler's naked body. Conrad recalls how he gently lifted the boy from the water and wrapped him in a blanket.

The fisherman would later learn the boy's name was Robert Martin Maillet. He was only 14 months old when he died along with his parents, Karen Domingue Maillet and Denis Maillet, both 37, of Baton Rouge, La. He was the youngest person on the plane.

Today, Conrad speaks in calm, even tones when describing what happened that moonless night.
"There's a tendency to think that it would be awful — and it is," says Conrad, now 65.
"But, from my experience, when the need to help another is critical, the element of danger and personal threat seems to be gone; it's not there. What would be horrid for your eyes to see, somehow is muted or blunted so that you can perform the task at hand. That was most amazing to me."

Conrad says he didn't think twice about heading out on the water that night. He says he's convinced that his deep desire to help those in need is shared by most people who live in small communities along Atlantic Canada's rugged coastline.

"Why we respond in such a giving, caring kind of way seems to be very deeply connected to the sense of community that we have achieved, unconsciously or otherwise, over the course of our lives" he says.

"Generally, we like where we live. We develop a very deep sense of place in that experience. ... Every society values this sense of community if they can discover it. Sometimes, big cities lose it. Individuals become invisible."

Butler says the reality of living on the East Coast has long meant struggling to survive and relying on others to get by.

"There's almost like an egalitarian ethos in this province (Newfoundland and Labrador) and probably in Nova Scotia. It's based upon this idea that you'll survive if you share and you work out how to survive as a community. The ethos is still there in the background, in terms of sharing and community values."

Blair Beed, a Halifax author and well-known Titanic sites tour guide, says Atlantic Canadians are not unique in their ability to reach out to others.
"When we had the Halifax Explosion in 1917, the people of Boston came rallying to us because of that friendship across the border," says Beed, author of "Titanic Victims in Halifax Graveyards."

"But we certainly have a long history of helping others," he says, noting that Halifax — founded in 1749 as a military base — has always been imbued by a sense of duty and loyalty.

As well, the geography of the Atlantic region has played an obvious role in shaping the Atlantic character, he says. Jutting into the North Atlantic, the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland are routinely in harm's way when the weather turns foul.

"In the early days, people were crashing into us just because they didn't have the technology to say we were there," says Beed, whose grandfather was an undertaker's assistant who helped process bodies recovered after Titanic's sinking.

"I grew up with the idea that my grandfather was one of those people who said, 'The job has to be done.' "

For fisherman Bob Conrad, who still lives in Fox Point, N.S., the motivation to help others comes from a profound place.

"For me, there is this reality for every human being: each of us wants our life to count for something. ... It's just that when you get in a disaster scenario, the opportunity to achieve that is thrust upon you," he says.

"There's something so meaningful in not living for yourself but living for others and in community.

Monday, 2 April 2012

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/titanic-swissair-atlantic-canada-answers-call-disaster-strikes-083007307.html

continue reading

Plane crash horror: 32 people killed in Siberia after aircraft nosedives on take-off

A passenger plane crashed in Siberia shortly after taking off on Monday morning, killing 32 of the 43 people on board, Russian emergency officials said.

A medium-haul UTair-operated ATR-72 turboprop crashed 18 miles from the city of Tyumen, Siberia, shortly after takeoff from Moscow

The 11 survivors were hospitalised in serious condition.

The aircraft went down on a snowy field outside Tyumen, a major regional center in Siberia. The cause of the crash was not yet clear.

The Emergency Situations Ministry said 12 survivors were flown to a hospital by helicopter, but one of them died there.

The UTair company twin-engine turboprop flying to Surgut is said to have burst into flames shortly after take-off.

'The plane took off from Roschino airport, near Tyumen, towards Surgut (also in Siberia). According to preliminary information there were 39 passengers and four crew members aboard,' a ministry spokesman told the Interfax news agency.

Sixteen bodies have so far been recovered by a team of nearly 200 rescue workers. Children are reported among the victims, according to Russia Today, quoting the Ministry's report.
Survivors have been taken to hospitals in Tyumen by helicopter and are said to have sustained serious injuries.

UTair published a list of the passengers and crew, and none of them appeared to be foreigners.
Connection with the medium-haul ATR-72, a French-Italian-made plane, was lost before the crash, according to RT.com.

A criminal probe has been launched into the incident.Russia has seen a string of deadly crashes in recent years. Some have been blamed on the use of aging Soviet-era aircraft, but industry experts point to a number of other problems, including poor crew training, crumbling airports, lax government controls and widespread neglect of safety in the pursuit of profits.

Mon, 2 April 2012

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123808/Russian-plane-crash-32-people-killed-Siberia-aircraft-nosedives-off.html#ixzz1qriBRDXI

continue reading

Serbian police say 6 people die fleeing blaze in nightclub in country's north; owner detained

Serbian police say six people died in a nightclub fire in the city in the country's north.

The owner of a nightclub where six people died on Sunday trying to escape a fierce blaze has been detained by police, a Serbian official says.

Police spokeswoman Mileva Tomic said Alojz G., who owns Contrast club in Novi Sad in northern Serbia, was detained along with two more people. She did not give the owner's full name.

Emergency workers could be seen removing a body from the blackened shell of the building Sunday afternoon. Nearby, a man crouched in the middle of the road, seemingly in tears.

Investigative judge Ana Stamenic said the likely cause of the fire, which erupted around 2 a.m. (0000GMT), was flawed electrical installations, but an investigation is ongoing.

Police officials have said the victims died from smoke inhalation while trying to flee the blaze that broke out around the stage area during a live performance and quickly spread.

"One of them was just half a meter from an exit," said senior police official Predrag Maric. "There must have been huge panic, they all rushed to get out."

Stamenic said all the victims have been identified, and they are three men and three women, aged 21-29 years old. Officials had initially said the victims were teenagers.

Maric said some 350 people were inside the club during the fire and all rushed to the exits in an attempt to flee the blaze.

Two more people were injured, but their lives are not in danger, doctors said.

Authorities in Novi Sad declared three days of mourning starting on Monday. Serbia's President Boris Tadic expressed condolences to the families in a statement.

Sunday, Apr 01, 2012 07:15 am | The Associated Press

http://www.oldsalbertan.ca/article/GB/20120401/CP01/304019990/-1/old0806/serbian-police-say-6-teenagers-die-fleeing-nightclub-fire-1-just-1-2&template=cpArt

continue reading

Disaster victims haunted by ghosts

TOKYO (majirox news) — For many who lived through last year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the horror lives on – in the form of the ghosts of those who died. More than 15,000 victims perished in the disaster, but the bodies of 3,700 additional victims are still missing.

Some survivors claim to have seen and heard the ghosts of their absent relatives and friends, who implore the living to allow the spirits to rest by finding the bodies and giving them a proper funeral.

An elderly man in Miyagi prefecture in the Tohoku region told a priest that he saw a clear image and heard strange sounds of someone walking on the surface of the ocean. A woman staying in temporary housing said a ghost visited her on the grounds. “I believe something happened here,” she said.

As might be expected, there is no government organization whose duty it is to comfort and counsel those who claim to have been contacted from beyond the grave. Nor are those who are experiencing such visions keen to confide in their families, and so religious groups are stepping into the breach to provide support for these people.

Buddhist priest Kobo Inoue, who acts as secretary general of the Young Buddhist Association of the Pure Land School, says that seeing ghosts is a natural thing for those who have suffered intense trauma, such as that of the March 11 disaster.

“Visions after facing death are more common than people think, and cut across nationalities, religions and cultures,” he said. “I don’t know if they are really ghosts or not, but I don’t deny that they have seen some things that they call ghosts,” he said.

He added that these people are not hallucinating, and are aware of their surroundings while they see these things. He cites stories in literature and historical biographies of such visions seen by those who have faced death or who were on their deathbed.

The chanting of Buddhist sutras seems to help to ease the pain and grief, he says, and many survivors feel a sense of relief after they have chanted alongside the priest. It is impossible for Inoue to forget what he saw up in Tohoku. “I cannot get my mind in order. After I went to the disaster area in Miyagi, I saw cars covered in dirt and dust, darkened stores, Self-Defense Forces helicopters flying around me, and the shocked residents everywhere.” He added that many of those suffering cried, and they gained some hope when they saw the Buddhist priests who had come to help them.

Other priests take different views of the phenomena. Tokyo priest Ryonosuke Fukumoto emphasizes the “realistic” teachings of Buddhism.

“I do not believe in any superstitious things such as ghosts,” he said. “The reason why one sees such things is that one’s mind is confused as a result of fear and worry. In my experience, such a troubled mental state has always brought me bad results.” For example, Fukumoto said he made a trivial mistake in his work, which he would never have made in his usual mental state.

He believes that Buddhist teachings help calm our emotional agitation, and see the truth – the reality, restating his believe that “ghosts” or “voices” are a reflection of one’s mental and emotional states.

Although the communities flattened and destroyed by the earthquake are slowly being rebuilt, rebuilding the spirits of the residents and healing the scars caused by their losses will take longer, and this is an area where religion provides comfort and helps to lay the ghosts of the past – whatever they may be – to rest.

Monday 15 October 2012

http://www.majiroxnews.com/2012/03/12/disaster-victims-haunted-by-ghosts/

continue reading

Japan's post-disaster reconstruction efforts hindered – by ghosts

Reports of ghost sightings have reportedly been made by residents in the city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi prefecture, home to nearly a fifth of all tsunami fatalities.

Reconstruction and repair have been put on hold in some instances due to workers' fears that the spirits of the dead who passed away a year ago will bring them bad luck if they continue, according to AFP.

Highlighting one half-repaired supermarket, local Satoshi Abe, 64, told the agency: "I heard people working to repair the store became sick because of ghosts. People died here everywhere, here and there. The city is full of such stories."

A taxi driver, who did not want to be named, added that he was unwilling to stop in certain parts of the city that were badly damaged in the tsunami for fear of picking up a customer who is a spirit of the dead.

Meanwhile, another local woman described hearing stories of people seeing queues of people rushing towards the hills, a replay of their final moment as they attempted to escape the tsunami, according to AFP

As the first anniversary of the disaster approaches, Ishinomaki appears, on the surface at least, to be returning to a new level of normality, with the tsunami debris cleared away in most areas and a growing number of businesses reopening.

At the same time, the emotional impact of the massive losses of human life are clearly continuing to take their toll on residents: close to 4,000 Ishinomaki locals were killed in the tsunami out of a total death toll of 19,000 for the northeast region.

However, experts described the city's apparent widespread belief in ghosts as a "natural" side effect of a large-scale tragedy which wiped out vast swathes of the community and a potentially positive part of the healing process.

"Human beings find it very difficult to accept death, whether they are inclined by nature to superstition or are very scientifically minded," said Takeo Funabiki, a cultural anthropologist.

"A sudden or abnormal death, anything other than someone dying in bed of old age, is particularly difficult for people to comprehend.

"When there are things that many people find difficult to accept, they can find expression in the form of rumours or rituals for the dead, among other things. The point is that it takes the shape of something that you can share with other people in your society."

Koji Ikeda, a therapist and lecturer at the Academy of Counselors Japan, added: "It is possible that a whole lot of emotions that people cannot fully cope with lead to 'projections' of spirits" he said. "Pent-up emotions need to be expressed in order for people to be able to adapt to the new reality and move forward with their grief."

29 February 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/9113559/Japans-post-disaster-reconstruction-efforts-hindered-by-ghosts.html

continue reading

World War I diggers named

Nine more World War I diggers have been identified out of more than 250 found in a mass grave at Fromelles, along with two Australian special forces troops killed in the Dutch East Indies in World War II.

Revealing the names of the soldiers in a statement on Saturday, Veterans Affairs Minister Warren Snowdon said the total number of those identified from the Battle of Fromelles now stood at 119.

A further 92 Australians remain unidentified, along with two British soldiers and a further 37 whose graves are marked 'Unidentified Soldier of the Great War'.

'We are encouraged by the success, made possible by the large number of extended family members, both in Australia and Britain, who have provided DNA samples to assist with identification,' Mr Snowdon said.

Fromelles was the first major action involving Australian troops in France in World War I. It was fought over July 19-20, 1916 and resulted in more than 5500 Australian casualties. Many of the fallen were never found. The battle is regarded as one of the worst days in Australian military history.

In 2009 a mass grave was located in Pheasant Wood, on the battle site where German soldiers had buried Australian and British dead.

All the bodies have now been reburied in the new Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery.

Mr Snowdon said the latest identification project has now ensured privates Leonard Broadhurst, Robert Carrington Forland, John Robertson Forrest, John Joseph Goulding, William Alexander Jamieson, Arthur Joseph Johnson, Claude Ward, John Cyril Wynn and Corporal Alfred George Tuck are known by name where they lie in Fromelles.

Army chief Lieutenant General David Morrison said in a statement that 3000 family members had become involved in the identification process 'but we still need more', he added.

'If you think you might be related to a soldier who remains unaccounted for from the Battle of Fromelles, please get in contact with the army,' Lt Gen Morrison said.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission will erect new headstones each nearing the identified men's details. They will be dedicated on July 20 during the annual commemoration of the battle.

Along with the Battle of Fromelles soldiers, two Australian special forces troops killed in the Dutch East Indies at the tail end of World War II have been identified after 67 years.

Mr Snowdon said the two had been named as Lieutenant Scobell McFerran-Rogers and Private John Whitworth of the Australian Z Special commando Unit.

Also identified was their Timorese interpreter, Roestan.

They were participating in Operation Raven, a search and recovery party sent to find and determine the fate of a US aircrew shot down over Celebes in the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, in 1945.

The army's Unrecovered War Casualties Unit said the group landed on the island, today called Sulawesi, on June 19, 13 days after the first plane was shot down.

A day later while waiting to be evacuated by floatplane, they encountered a Japanese patrol. Two of the team - Mr Roestan and Lieutenant McFerran-Rogers - were killed during the initial fire fight. Private Whitworth was believed to have been wounded and later captured.

A war graves registration team found their remains after the war but they were not identified. They were reburied in the Bomana War Cemetery at Port Moresby as 'known only to God'.

Last year, family members of Private Whitworth approached the Unrecovered War Casualties Unit seeking to determine his fate, plus that of the others lost on Operation Raven.

Mr Snowdon said he hoped this would bring some closure to the families.

'The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has received the army's recommendations and new headstones will be installed in the coming months. I hope we will be able to dedicate those headstones during the 70th-anniversary commemorations of the Kokoda and Milne Bay campaigns,' he said.

Sat, 31 March 2012

http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=734940&vId=

continue reading