Hope fades for Nepal flood victims, toll may hit 60

KATHMANDU (AFP) - Rescuers scouring Nepal's central Annapurna region after severe flash flooding said Sunday that there was almost no hope of finding survivors and that the final death toll could be more than 60. The bodies of 17 people have been recovered but district police superintendent Sailesh Thapa told AFP that 47 missing people, including three Ukrainian tourists, were feared dead. "So far, 12 of the 17 bodies have been identified. An excavator has reached the worst affected areas and is clearing the mud," he said. "We have a list of another 47 people who have gone missing. Their chances of survival are almost zero. The three Ukrainians are still missing." Just eight people have been rescued since the Seti burst its banks near the city of Pokhara, a popular tourist hub, on Saturday, sweeping away an entire village, and swamping families enjoying picnics on the river banks. Most of the missing are thought to be local. One witness, named as Uddha Bahadur Gurung, described how the river had suddenly swollen with water and turned into a lethal surge. "There was nothing unusual. People were enjoying picnics, some were relaxing in the hot spring pools by the river and others working," he told the Kathmandu Post. "Out of nowhere came this swelling dark murky water with debris, sweeping away many people." Sniffer dogs have been sent 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the capital Kathmandu to search for bodies along the banks of the river, which has now subsided, while police and army personnel hunted for survivors. Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai broke off from key political negotiations over forming a new government to visit Kharapani village, which was washed away by the flood, his spokesman told AFP. "He has instructed the authorities to bring 20 excavators so that the dead bodies of those who have been buried by the floods can be recovered," said Bishwadeep Pandey, personal secretary to the premier. "The prime minister has also committed the government to provide expenses for the last rites to family members of those who died." A landslide caused by days of heavy rain had blocked the Seti near its origin in the snow fields and glaciers of the Himalayas, said Nepalese Army spokesman Ramindra Chhetri. "Then there was a powerful outburst, which resulted in a flash flood in the Seti river that entered human settlements and created havoc," he told AFP, adding some houses were covered with mud up to 12 feet (3.5 metres) deep. "We have mobilised a company, an engineer platoon and soldiers from specialised troops for search and rescue operations," he said. The 8,091-metres (26,545-feet) Mount Annapurna attracts thousands of trekkers, both local and foreign, each year as well as day-trippers who enjoy picnics on the banks of the Seti river. The mountain is considered both technically difficult and avalanche-prone and has a much higher death rate among climbers than Everest, the world's highest peak. 07/05/2012 http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/13615283/hope-fades-for-nepal-flood-victims-toll-may-hit-60/

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Protecting WWII mass graves is a duty to victims

BUCHAREST (AFP)---Hundreds of Holocaust-era mass graves are scattered around Eastern Europe, scholars said Friday, urging authorities to protect them as they owed it to victims of World War II atrocities. "We cannot build Europe and democracy upon the mass graves of forgotten victims," Patrick Desbois, a French Catholic priest who set up the Yahad-In Unum association, told participants in a seminar on WWII mass graves. The Paris-based association has embarked upon the gruesome task of documenting extermination sites in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Poland. "We have received hundreds of letters from people asking: 'in which mass grave is my grand-mother or my uncle buried'," Desbois said. "We have a duty to victims because each and every one of them had a name." A historian with the association, Patrice Bensimon, said that 650 mass-grave sites had been identified on the outskirts of villages, in valleysor forests in the four countries since 2004. After interviewing more than 1,850 eyewitnesses, Desbois said he had come to a shocking conclusion: "I thought they were done secretly, but the shootings were public. People watched, thinking the executions were interesting." In one case, a witness aged seven at the time of the pogrom recounted how he had watched Jewish children aged 0 to 6, some 800 of them according to archives, being massacred in the Transdniestrian village of Bogdanivka (now part of Ukraine). "How can you be a seven-year-old and watch all day the assassinations? This is a big human question," Desbois wondered. "Most Holocaust victims lying in mass graves and still waiting to be remembered are in this part of Europe," Paul Shapiro, director of the centre for advanced studies at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, said. He stressed that more than one million people, and maybe up to one third of the six million Jews murdered during WWII, were slaughtered in Eastern Europe, in their own villages, in front of neighbours and family members. Roma, Soviet POWs, higher echelons of Polish society and homosexuals also lie in unmarked mass graves, he said. "The multitude of mass graves and the implication of forces acting under different authorities make the situation in Eastern Europe more complicated," Radu Ioanid, director of the Holocaust Museum, told AFP. After having for years denied any role in the Holocaust, Bucharest accepted the conclusions of an international commission of historians saying that up to 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews were murdered or died in Romania and the territory under its control between 1940 and 1944, during the regime of pro-Nazi marshal Ion Antonescu. In one of the worst single WWII massacres, the June 1941 pogrom in the northern Romanian city of Iasi, nearly 15,000 Jews were shot dead in the street or asphyxiated in "death trains". "The killings elicited no negative reaction from the population," Shapiro said. A mass grave containing the bodies of at least 35 Jewish men, women and children killed by the Romanian army in 1941 was discovered in a forest at Popricani, near Iasi, last November. The remains were exhumed before being properly reburied five months later. But Popricani was an exception. "We do not open mass graves, because Jewish law does not allow it," Desbois said. What his team does is transmit the GPS data to the American Jewish Committee so that the exact location may be entered into archives that will eventually be posted on the internet. The Committee is expected to launch soon, jointly with Germany, a project to protect some of the mass graves. Apart from the local authorities' indifference, scholars like Desbois must also fight the threat of construction or industrial projects destroying the graves. "But the biggest problem is that time is running out, as witnesses are dying," Bensimon said. 4 May 2012 http://ejpress.org/article/51814

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Remains of 23 people found in Turkey mass grave

(AFP) DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Turkish authorities found the remains of 23 people in a mass grave in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey on the former site of military police headquarters, Anatolia news agency reported Wednesday. The first remains were discovered earlier this month, during an archeological dig in Ickale, in central Diyarbakir, where ruins of an ancient palace dating back to the 13th century were being excavated. The area had been the site of a military police headquarters until the early 2000s. The eventual aim of the excavation is to carry out restoration work and turn the place into a museum and culture spot. Human rights activists claim the remains belong to civilian Kurds killed by security forces during 1990s. “Skulls and other bones belonging to humans were found here… According to what we saw they were piled up in a narrow place… They were apparently thrown there casually, without any religious ceremony,” Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker told reporters earlier this week, after visiting the site. The Diyarbakir branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD) and 36 families whose relatives went missing during 1990s filed a criminal complaint on Wednesday against state officials of the time and asked for DNA tests for identification. Around 45,000 people have died since the mid-1980s when the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) took up arms for a self-ruled homeland in southeast Turkey. Remains of 190 bodies have been found in 29 different mass graves in more than 10 provinces in southeast Turkey, according to IHD’s Diyarbakir branch. The association estimates that more than 3,000 people are buried in 224 different mass graves in the region. 4 May 2012 http://ikjnews.com/?p=3219

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Short circuit likely behind deadly bus fire in West Sumatra

Police say that a short circuit likely triggered the fire that killed 13 people on board a bus in Hulu Air in Harau district, Limapuluh Kota regency, West Sumatra, on Tuesday. “Witnesses said that the bus suddenly caught fire while passing along Jl. Negara West Sumatra-Riau at Kilometer 30 before entering Payakumbuh. Many of the passengers were trapped inside the bus,” West Sumatra Police spokesman, Adj. Sr. Comr. Mainar Sugiarto, said on Tuesday. Five of the victims, all residents of Agam regency, have been identified as Dariman, 75; Nurhayati, 45; Riski, 7; Rosida, 60; and Yasnimas, 41. Identification of the victims, comprising five women, three men, four children and a toddler, has been hindered due to the conditions of the bodies. Twelve passengers who suffered burns and bone fractures are currently being treated at Adnan Hospital in Payakumbuh, while a further 10 passengers were treated and then released. About 48 people were on the bus when it departed from Dumai, Riau, on Sunday night bound for Solok in West Sumatra. Most of the passengers were asleep when the bus caught fire after the driver stopped the vehicle to pour water on its smoking engine. Police officers and emergency workers evacuated injured passengers from the bus and rushed them to the Payakumbuh hospital, an official from the Limapuluh Kota regency Disaster Management Agency (BPBD), Edi, said as reported by Antara news agency. Authorities deployed personnel from the Payakumbuh fire department and the BPBD to recover the remains of those who perished in the fire. The driver, YND, 31, and his co-driver, HSD, 26, reportedly managed to flee the bus. They were arrested and are currently being questioned by police, Limapuluh Kota Police chief, Adj. Sr. Comr. Partomo Irianto, said. Meanwhile, a representative of state-owned insurance company PT Jasa Raharja confirmed that his company would pay compensation to all the victims on the ill-fated bus. “All of the bus’ passengers will receive compensation from Jasa Raharja, in line with a 1964 law,” spokesman of the company’s West Sumatra branch office, Kamil, said in Padang as quoted by kompas.com. Kamil explained that the families of each of the dead would be given Rp 25 million in compensation and those of the injured victims, a maximum of Rp 10 million each. If a person’s medical costs exceed Rp 10 million, the surplus will have to be borne by their family. “Victims who don’t have any relatives will be entitled to funeral costs of up to Rp 2 million,” Kamil said. He added that Jasa Raharja did not yet have detailed information about the number of dead and injured victims. Officials from the insurance company were currently compiling data about the wounded passengers and the families of the dead, all of whom would receive the compensation, he said. Kamil also said that Jasa Rahar-ja expressed its condolences over the incident. “Jasa Raharja will do its utmost to serve its clients,” he said, adding that in such a situation, Jasa Raharja would directly support the medical treatment at the hospital and the transfer of the bodies of those killed to their relatives for funeral. Wed, 05/02/2012 http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/05/02/short-circuit-likely-behind-deadly-bus-fire-west-sumatra.html

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Ferry disaster: 13 bodies recovered, toll mounts to 122

Rescuers found bodies of 13 victims of Monday’s deadly ferry disaster here pushing the toll to 122 on Thursday while Bangladesh assured Indian authorities of assistance in recovery and repatriation of bodies that may have been washed downstream. Of the bodies, 12 were found during the day and one last night, Additional Superintendent of Police Prashanta Dutta said. The bodies were found at Mundiya and Jogomaya downstream in the Brahmaputra river from Medartary ghat where the double-decker ferry capsized. The ferry was carrying around 380 passengers, according to tickets sold. On the other hand, a flag meeting was held at Sonarhat on the Indo-Bangla border between the BSF and the Border Guards Bangladesh in which senior district and police officers from Dhubri and Kurigram district of Bangladesh participated. “We have asked for help and cooperation from Bangladesh in retrieving bodies that may have been washed downstream. They have assured us of all help,” Dhubri District Commissioner Kumud Chandra Kalita told PTI. Both sides jointly identified two villages in Kurigram, Dahikhawa and Yatrapur, where bodies could be washed ashore in view of the strong current of the Brahmaputra, Mr. Kalita said. “BGB and Kurigram district officials said that so far not a single body has been recovered from their side. People in Kurigram district have been told by the Bangladeshi authorities to contact them in case of any sighting,” he said. President of the state’s principal Opposition party AIUDF and Lok Sabha MP from Dhubri Badruddin Ajmal visited the spot. “I have contacted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and he has assured of all help. Around 5 to 6 of our party MLAs will camp in the area to ensure that search operations are carried out properly,” Mr. Ajmal said. 3 May 2012 http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/other-states/article3379766.ece

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Visegrad Genocide Memories

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Visegrad genocide. For a more easier and quick way of understanding what occurred in 1992, we decided to publish a booklet about the Visegrad genocide. This booklet is entitled: “The memory remains: 20 years since the Visegrad genocide”. The booklet (pdf) can be downloaded here

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81 men and 3 women were shot in one night in February 1937 What is believed to be the second largest mass grave of people shot by the Franco troops in the Civil War has been revealed in the Málaga village of Teba. The largest such grave is in the San Rafael Cemetery in Málaga. It’s estimated that the grave contains at least 125 bodies, and so far the remains of 35 people have been recovered. The 35 were shot between 1936 and 1949 in Teba. Identification of the bodies is complicated given that the remains have just been dumped on top of each other. It has been decided to construct a pantheon to lay the bodies finally at rest at a site where those who want to pay their respects can do so. This will only happen when the bodies are indentified with DNA, to give the families the chance to bury their loved ones where they wish. Between September 12 and 14 1936, the Franco troops took Teba. Many locals fled looking for the republican front which was then between Peñarrubia and Ardales in a night known as ‘the escape night’. Some preferred to stay in the village, and soon started to face the repression, but those who ran were intercepted on February 6 1937 at Campanillas. They told Franco’s troops that they had not carried out any blood crimes and they were allowed to return to the village. But on the return between Feb 7 and 10 nearly all the men were arrested at put into improvised jail made from two houses. On February 23, 81 men and 3 women were taken to the cemetery in groups of ten and shot. The archaeologist, Andrés Fernández, who is directing the excavation says that there was a night, on 23 February 1937, referred to locally as ‘the night of the 80’. On that night 81 men and 3 women were shot. The investigation is being coordinated by Juan Fuentes, who is a member of the Historical Memory Association in Antequera. He asked for the funds to start the job, and said that parallel research is being carried out in both local and provincial history archives. Ramón Espinosa, a Teba resident, told EFE news agency that the exhumation is being carried out as ‘an absolutely normal question, as something you have to do’. May 2, 2012 http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_34545.shtml

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CIUDAD JUAREZ - The identities of nearly 800 skeletal remains found between 2007 and December last year in the state of Chihuahua - 135 in this city - continue to be an unsolved mystery, state authorities said on Tuesday. During a tour of the state's forensic services department in Juárez, technicians said they have obtained genetic profiles of each one of the remains, but they still haven't been able to determine their identities because none of the 791 victims has matched the genetic material samples provided by relatives searching for missing people in the state. The lack of positive matches in these cases means the victims came from other states or countries, or that their relatives never provided a sample of genetic material. Daniel Ricardo Jaramillo, general director of the state's forensic services department, said he has shared the genetic database of the unidentified victims with Mexico's National Human Rights Commission, or CNDH, which is putting together a national database to identify individuals who disappeared outside of their home state. Under the CNDH's system, the states would deliver database updates every three months. Chihuahua became the first state to contribute to the project when Governor César Duarte Advertisement submitted the state's database to the president of the CNDH in February, Jaramillo said. The information in Chihuahua's database could put an end to years of uncertainty for many relatives of missing people in other Mexican states, Jaramillo said. "We know we're at a crossing point," he said. "Imagine the people who saw their relatives leave and their only reference was that they were heading north, toward the United States, and that's the last thing they ever knew from them." The problem of missing people and skeletal remains found in the open, particularly of young women, has haunted Juárez for more than two decades. The anthropology area of the forensic services department currently has in its custody the unidentified skeletal remains of 51 women - 41 that remained from a previous study conducted by a team of Argentine forensics experts, four found in 2010, two found in 2011 and four found this year. Forensics experts have obtained genetic profiles for all of the remains - except for two of the most recent ones - but they haven't matched any of the DNA samples provided by relatives of missing young women. On Tuesday, officials with the forensic services department gave a tour to members of the press of the state's laboratories on genetic forensics, criminal forensics, anthropology and ballistics to explain their operations and boast their state-of-the-art facilities. During the tour, Jaramillo highlighted recent efforts to identify skeletal remains buried by state authorities in common graves before 2004. Last year authorities exhumed 128 individuals - 123 men and 5 women - buried between 1996 and 1997 with the purpose of trying to determine their identities using methods that didn't exist more than a decade ago. So far forensic experts have been able to identify a 19-year-old woman, Myriam Glizeth Bernal Hernández, who went missing in July 1996. In response to the many complaints that state authorities have received regarding the long periods of time it has taken them to determine whether a skeletal remains belongs to a missing person, forensic experts explained the processes they must employ to identify a victim. Eberth Castañón Torres, coordinator of the genetic forensics laboratory, said they can obtain a genetic profile from an ideal sample - like blood taken from a living person or who had just recently died - within three or four days. But even though the state's laboratories are among the most modern in Mexico, the forensics team said that the wait can drag for three or four months if authorities are only able to retrieve incomplete skeletal remains or if they have been out in the open for too long. Exposure to heat, the concentration of salts in the region and scavenger animals can damage skeletal remains even more. "No matter how good our equipment is, if the sample is too eroded, it will prolong the process," Jaramillo said. Time can extend even longer like in the case of Hilda Gabriela Rivera Campos, a 16-year-old woman whose remains were found in 2009, but were not given to her family until last year. Forensic experts said other causes for delays were the workload of the eight persons working at the genetic laboratory and the current limitations of science and technology. Castañón said they currently have around 2,000 samples of all types - hair, blood, semen, urine, among others - collected so far this year that are still waiting to be analyzed. That was the approximate amount of samples they would collect and analyze in an entire year before the current period of violence began in 2008, he said. Another factor is that current processing methods may be insufficient to obtain DNA samples from excessively eroded remains - such is the case with 17 male skeletal remains under the forensic services department's custody since 2005. However, as technology improves and new methods become available, new tests are implemented, which occasionally yield better results. "We have samples that have been in the labs for years and we haven't been able to obtain results," said Oscar Villanueva, coordinator for the state's forensic services department in Juárez. Castañón said they conduct new tests on remains from which they were unable to obtain DNA samples one or two times each year. Another impediment, perhaps more serious, is the current language of the state's law on genetic database regulation, which prohibits forensic experts from producing and presenting a genetic study without an official request from a state investigator. "We can't do anything without a specific petition from the investigative authorities," Villanueva said. Jaramillo said the state's general legal department is currently going over changes to the law to allow forensic experts to have a more active role in producing evidence. Tuesday's tour also included a visit to the laboratory where forensic experts clean and measure skeletal remains and the room where they keep unidentified remains. Currently, authorities have in their custody 32 boxes with evidence and 69 with skeletal remains found between 1996 and 2012. Other facilities included the ballistics laboratory, where they try to match bullets with the weapons they were fired from. Since 2010, the forensic services department has processed 1,104 weapons and more than 37,000 bullet casings and projectiles. 2 May 2012 http://www.lcsun-news.com/new_mexico-news/ci_20530633/800-skeletal-remains-chihuahua-still-not-identified

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Search for IRA murder victim Columba McVeigh begins

THE FORENSIC scientist leading the search in Co Monaghan for the remains of one of the Disappeared, Columba McVeigh, has appealed for anyone with even the most “trivial” information to come forward. Geoff Knupfer, who in the 1980s was involved in the search for two of the victims of Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, yesterday began overseeing “painstaking work” to find the remains of Mr McVeigh, who was abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA in 1975. Forestry workers last week cut down and cleared away trees at Bragan, Co Monaghan, where Mr McVeigh, who was 17 when he disappeared, may have been buried. Yesterday Mr Knupfer, chief investigator of the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains, led specialist workers as they began clearing away the tree roots in their efforts to find the remains of Mr McVeigh. He said up to a dozen members of the IRA may have been involved in the abduction, interrogation, murder and burial of Mr McVeigh, who was from Donaghmore in Co Tyrone. He urged anyone with information to bring it to the commission. “I would appeal to anyone with information, however trivial they may think it is, to bring it forward. That information may mean nothing to them but it might be the piece of information we are looking for,” he said. The commission has searched the general Bragan bog site three times already, but now the trees have been cut down in a 100m by 100m area, this is the first time it has been able to search this specific location. When Mr McVeigh was murdered the area would have been covered in saplings. Mr Knupfer said the work would take a number of weeks. “This is a complex process. We have to be very careful in digging the ground and clearing away all the tree roots. It’s a case of fingers crossed that we will be successful this time,” he said. In the mid-1980s, Mr Knupfer carried out searches for two of the victims of Brady and Hindley, who in the early 1960s killed five children aged between 10 and 17 in the so-called Moors murders. He was successful in recovering the remains of victim Pauline Reade. The remains of Keith Bennett were not found. So far the remains of 10 of the 17 Disappeared victims of the Troubles, most of whom were murdered by the IRA, have been recovered. The Irish Times - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0424/1224315104139.html

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Philadelphia Soldier Missing from Vietnam War Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. Army Capt. Charles R. Barnes of Philadelphia, Pa., will be buried May 2, in Arlington National Cemetery. On March 16, 1969, Barnes and four other service members departed Qui Nhon Airfields bound for Da Nang and Phu Bai, in a U-21A Ute aircraft. As they approached Da Nang, they encountered low clouds and poor visibility. Communications with the aircraft were lost, and they did not land as scheduled. Immediate search efforts were limited due to hazardous weather conditions, and all five men were list as missing in action. From 1986-1989, unidentified human remains were turned over to the United States from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) in several different instances. None of the remains were identified given the limits of the technology of the time. In 1993, a joint U.S.-S.R.V. team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted investigations in Quang Nam-Da Nang, and Thua Thien-Hue Provinces. They interviewed a local Vietnamese citizen who supplied remains and an identification tag bearing Barnes' name, which he claimed to have recovered from an aircraft crash site. In 1999, another joint U.S.-S.R.V. team interviewed additional Vietnamese citizens about the crash and they were led to the crash site. In 2000, a joint U.S.-S.R.V. team excavated the site and recovered human remains and material evidence. Scientists from the JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used circumstantial evidence, and forensic identification tools such as mitochondrial DNA -- which matched that of Barnes' sister -- in the identification of the remains. For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, call 703-699-1420 or visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo 1 May 2012 Read more: http://www.gloucestercitynews.net/clearysnotebook/2012/05/soldier-missing-from-vietnam-war-identified.html#ixzz1tj0ckliD

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Mangalore: Mass burial site of crash victims not indicated

TOI-pk The mass burial site of 12 victims of the IX-812 crash at Tannir Bhavi near here is now an obscure spot. Barring a few undulations where the bodies were buried and a red and white tape bordering the site, there is hardly any indication to show that the bodies of the air crash victims lie interned there. This has angered many, including Robert Pinto, who had airline crew - Yuganthar Rana and Mohammed Ali and who perished in the air crash - as his tenants. Pinto said the district administration should at least erect a fence so that the site is not disturbed and a board to indicate that unidentified bodies were buried there. One of the cabin crew, Sujatha Survase, from Maharashtra was also buried there. Not all of her family members could come for the mass burial as it was decided by the administration at the last minute. If her relatives want to see the site where she was buried, they will be shocked. Can I show that place and say your kin was buried there? asks Pinto. To give credit to the district administration, it tried hard to get a land for mass burial, but due to religious sentiments involved they could not get any land. New Mangalore Port Trust had stepped in to provide the land. Sources in NMP say that nothing can be done at that site as it is abutting the river and high tension power lines run above the site. Earlier, the authorities here had sent samples of 22 victims and their relatives for DNA sampling to Hyderabad-based Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) after they were faced with multiple claims for some of the bodies. The CDFD, on May 26, presented a report identifying 10 of the bodies. Of this, a Udupi-based family refused to collect the body stating that it did not match physical profile. Based on a subsequent report presented by CDFD authorities on May 28, the authorities handed over one more body to next of their kin. This left them dealing with families of remaining victims. The 12 bodies were laid to rest after the religious leaders from Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Sikh communities performed the last rites. 6/25/2010 http://www.sfxkutam.com/news_index_arch1.asp?offset=1210

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Assam asks Dhaka to help locate ferry victims

Guwahati, May 2 (IANS) Assam has sought help from Bangladesh to trace bodies of a ferry disaster which might have been washed away downstream, an official said Wednesday. As authorities resumed search operations for the Monday victims, an Assam government spokesman admitted that Bangladesh had been asked to help. The incident took place in lower Assam’s Dhubri district. Border Security Force (BSF) and National Disaster Rescue Force (NDRF) personnel are engaged in the search for the missing following the tragedy that is feared to have killed 270 people. The spokesman said strong river currents may have washed away the bodies downstream to Bangladesh. Although it is estimated that about 270 died in the worst ever ferry tragedy in Assam, the administration is yet to confirm the exact number of the dead. “We have reports that there were about 350 people on board and only 80 were rescued. However, our investigation is still on and we cannot confirm the exact number of deceased as we we do not have the bodies,” Dhubri district Deputy Commissioner Kumud Kalita told IANS. He said only 42 complaints of missing people had been received. He hinted the government might have to presume the missing were dead. “But it’s too early,” Kalita said. The government said the state machinery had been told to take measures to stop the recurrence of such incidents. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is likely to visit the area Thursday. http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/assam-asks-dhaka-to-help-locate-ferry-victims-lead_100615291.html

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Australian, South African Killed in Indonesia Plane Crash

A South African pilot and his Australian passenger were killed when their Susi Air plane crashed in eastern Indonesia, officials said Thursday, in the airline’s third fatal accident in a year. They were the only people on board the Pilatus PC-6 aircraft, which was carrying the Australian photographer on a chartered flight, the airline’s operations director Christian Strombeck said. “The pilot was South African and the photographer was Australian. Both were killed,” he said. “The plane crashed Wednesday at around 5:30 p.m. local time (0930 GMT), and the bodies were found at around 1:30 a.m. Thursday,” he said. “The Pilatus PC-6 aircraft was flying in East Kalimantan to do some aerial photography when it crashed,” Strombeck added. The plane went down near a village in the Kutai Kartanegara district, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. “The aircraft crashed at the edge of a ravine,” he said. Susi Air is a small domestic airline that operates mostly Cessna Grand Caravan planes usually configured to carry 12 passengers and two pilots. It also operates a few smaller Pilatus aircraft. In November, one of the company’s Cessna aircraft crashed while trying to land in Indonesia’s remote Papua region, killing a Spanish pilot. Another of its aircraft crashed in September in Papua province, killing an Australian and Slovakian pilot. The Indonesian archipelago of more than 17,000 island relies on air transport to reach remote areas and has a poor aviation safety record. Fri 27 April 2012 http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/update-indonesia-plane-crash-victims-identified/514196

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Nadra offers AFIS help to identify disaster victims

The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has volunteered its services to Pakistan Army for identification of soldiers trapped in Gayari snow-slide once they are found as it is in close contact with the relevant authorities for the purpose. This has been revealed in a report submitted by the Nadra here Tuesday. According to the report it deployed its Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) Unit in the rescue and recovery operation after the Bhoja Air crash on the orders of Chairman Nadra Friday last. The DVI Unit, headed by Director General, National Data Warehouse, Syed Muzaffar Ali, provided critical assistance and technical support in the identification of the bodies of the deceased. The report claimed that in many instances, bodies are charred or decomposed beyond recognition rendering them unidentifiable through conventional means. The DVI uses its Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) for establishing identification of the victims. The fingerprint samples taken by Nadra teams are compared with the existing records in the database and then identity is verified before handing over the remains to the respective families. The Nadra identified 7 bodies of the Bhoja air crash without delay through AFIS. It has the capacity to use facial imaging and recognition tools for identification and can help local law enforcement authorities with DNA identification as well. The first body was identified within a few hours of recovery; the speedy identification was greatly appreciated by the media and the relatives of deceased. The Nadra has previously helped in rescue and relief operations in many parts of Pakistan, including the floods of 2010, 2011 and Air Blue crash and other disasters. The report suggested that one can easily determine that if this would had not been there, many days must be needed in identification of dead bodies. In that case their relatives will have to undergo the stress and agony for fairly long time. The report noted that the federal Minister for Interior Rehman Malik and the relevant authorities appreciated the Nadra staff efforts, dedication and devotion during the rescue operation. Thursday, April 26, 2012 http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-105035-Nadra-offers-AFIS-help-to-identify-disaster-victims

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Widow sues funeral home, crematorium after receiving stranger's ashes

SALT LAKE CITY — Marilynn Flynn opened the urn containing her husband's ashes for the first time while preparing for a memorial service marking one year since his death. Flynn intended to spread some of his remains in the Sacramento Mountains near her home in Alamogordo, N.M. But what she says she saw inside the urn stunned her: a dental bridge fragment, a dental crown and three porcelain fragments — none of which belonged to her husband. "She feels devastated. She feels she let her husband down because she didn't secure his remains," said John Wheeler, an Alamogordo attorney representing Flynn in a federal lawsuit. The suit filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City alleges McDougal Funeral Homes and Independent Professional Services were negligent in handling the remains of Michael Wayne Flynn. It contends the ashes given to Marilynn Flynn could not have been those of her husband. Mike Flynn, 59, and two other men died April 25, 2009, when the airplane he was co-piloting crashed in the Oquirrh Mountains in Tooele County. The men were traveling from Missoula, Mont., to southern New Mexico to fight a wildfire. Marilynn Flynn positively identified her husband's remains shortly before they were cremated, Wheeler said. After discovering the dental fragments, she questioned whether the remains were her husband's. "Mr. Flynn never had that type of dental work done," Wheeler said. Marilynn Flynn took the fragments to a forensic dentist who determined they did not come from her husband. She also consulted with the widow of the pilot and found he had not had that kind of dental work done either, he said. Flynn intended to combine and inter her husband's ashes with her own after she dies. The purpose of the lawsuit is to locate Mike Flynn's remains and to find out "where the system broke down" so it doesn't happen again, Wheeler said. The crematory at Independent Professional Services is cleaned with a fine-bristle brush before each body goes in, and workers go over the remains with magnets to remove any metals before placing them into a heavy plastic bag, says owner Gerald Newlon. McDougal Funeral Homes, 4330 S. Redwood Road, took custody of the body from the state medical examiner's office and arranged with nearby Independent Professional Services for the cremation. Gerald Newlon, owner of Independent Professional Services, said Mike Flynn's body arrived in a "disaster pouch," which he said is typical of crash victims. An identification tag is attached, he said. Bodies are cremated one at a time. "We don't really know what we get in the disaster pouches," Newlon said. "In a case like this, everything we get goes into the crematory." The crematory is cleaned with a fine-bristle brush before each body goes in, he said. Workers go over the remains with magnets to remove any metals before placing them into a heavy plastic bag. Newlon said his company's patron contract advises them of the possibility of foreign objects. A woman who answered the phone at McDougal on Tuesday declined to comment. 25 April 2012 http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=20135237

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Identifying bodies a dilemma again

ISLAMABAD: Local administration is once again facing the dilemma of identifying air crash victims as it had faced after the Airblue crash in the Margallas in July 2010. Relatives have collected the bodies of 118 of the 127 persons who perished in Friday’s Bhoja Air crash but nine remain unclaimed. What makes the identification task difficult is that the remains of the victims fill 45 boxes. Frankly, most of the bodies were badly mutilated in the unfortunate crash. It were mostly body parts that we collected from the crash site. Only a few were intact,” a senior health officer told Dawn. Asked how they handed over the bodies to the heirs, he said: “Nadra helped us a lot and it was through finger marking and visual recognition.” When a similar question was raised by this reporter with the deputy commissioner of Islamabad, Amir Ali Ahmed, he said visual recognition by heirs was the key method also mentioned in the law and followed globally.” The second is DNA testing which takes a week or so. “We can’t say no to the heirs if they claim that a body belongs to them because visual recognition is the key to any claim,” he added. When told that some 45 coffins still remained with the local administration, Ahmed said: “Those 45 boxes are a symbol of respect given by my administration to the body parts of the victims. As Muslims, we respect every part of the body and keep them in separate coffin boxes.” He said the body parts would remain at the cold storage till the final DNA test reports were available after which it would be handed over to the heirs. “Once we receive a scientific report, we will hand over the bodies to the heirs.” Asked what he would do if several boxes still remained in their custody, he said: “We will bury them as per the defined Islamic rules and principles separately.” The DC said after the Airblue crash, they had faced a similar situation when they were left with some 20 coffins. But they followed the standard procedures. Meanwhile, Ahmed said the PC-I for establishment of a new mortuary was being prepared by the ICT administration and in this regard the help of Pims management had also been sought. It may be noted that the outpatient department (OPD) of Pims remained closed after the bodies of the air crash victims were kept in the hall. The executive director of the hospital, Prof Mahmood Jamal, said the OPD had now been opened. However, the DC said nowhere in the country a mortuary was managed by the district management; instead it was under the administrative control of hospitals. “However, to ease the load of Pims we have decided to go for an independent mortuary since we have to take a cold storage on rent during disasters.” 24 April 2012 http://dawn.com/2012/04/24/identifying-bodies-a-dilemma-again-2-fm/

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ISLAMABAD - The victims of an airline crash near Islamabad that killed all 127 people on board were laid to rest on Sunday, as investigators probed the causes of the fatal incident. The Bhoja Air flight from Karachi came down in fields near a village on the outskirts of Islamabad on Friday evening, second major fatal air crash in less than two years. Thirteen of those killed were buried late Saturday in Islamabad and funerals for 36 other victims were held in Karachi and other cities early Sunday, with more ceremonies expected in different cities throughout the day. Television broadcasts showed footage of distraught relatives, weeping and hugging each other, as the dozens of coffins left Islamabad’s Institute of Medical Sciences Hospital where the remains had been taken. Some nine dead bodies have not yet been identified and will undergo DNA tests, a hospital official said. Doctor Waseem Khawaja, in charge of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) told AFP that most of the bodies were beyond recognition and mutilated. An AFP reporter who visited the hospital late Saturday said some of the remains still at the hospital were no more than body parts, stored on stretchers and covered by white sheets. Most of the bodies, handed over to the relatives were identified by their identity cards, jewellery, shoes, passports, watches, clothes and body parts, witnesses said. An AFP photographer at the crash site on Sunday witnessed policemen cordoning off the whole area and not allowing local residents near.Investigation teams were busy collecting evidence from the site where the wreckage of the plane, along with victims’ clothes and shoes, were visible.The disaster is the city’s second major plane crash in less than two years - an Airblue plane came down in bad weather in July 2010, killing 152 - and victims’ families have voiced fury at the authorities. Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Director General Nadeem Khan Yusufzai said the plane suddenly dropped from 2,900 feet to 2,000 feet as it made its final approach to land, and vanished from the airport radar. He said another plane from the private Airblue airline landed safely from the same approach about 10 minutes afterwards and there was no indication from the Bhoja pilot that he was in distress. The flight data recorder has been recovered and will be sent abroad for analysis, and the overall investigation could take up to a year to complete its work, he told reporters Saturday,Interior Minister Rehman Malik said a committee had been set up to investigate the crash and the head of the airline Farooq Bhoja had been put on an ‘exit control list’, banning him from leaving Pakistan. All 127 people on board - 121 passengers and six crew - were killed when the plane crashed and burst into flames at around 6:40 pm on Friday. There were 11 children among the dead.In July 2010 an Airbus A321 operated by Airblue crashed into the hills overlooking Islamabad while coming in to land in heavy rain and poor visibility, killing all 152 people on board. Friday’s flight was Bhoja’s first evening trip from Karachi to Islamabad since resuming operations last month after a 12-year suspension for not paying Civil Aviation Authority dues. Mon 24 April 2012 http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/islamabad/23-Apr-2012/victims-of-plane-crash-laid-to-rest

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Identities of 60 victims of dictatorship will be known in a year

Within about a year, a team of forensic anthropologists from Argentina could lead the identification of the bones of 60 victims of the military dictatorship in Panama.

The news comes from officials of the Panamanian Foreign Ministry says La Prensa.

Since March 7 a group of anthropologists, Mercedes Salado, Carlos Vullo and Ute Hofmainer, the Panamanian government have worked ona report explaining the procedures they will follow to begin studies of human remains in custody of Panama’s Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences.

No starting date has been set because the Institute, has not received the comments of the Argentine forensic report submitted to the board members.

After the fulfillment of this phase, anthropologists will coordinate with the Institute of Legal Medicine to begin their work.

The investigations will be carried out in several stages, including the study of the bones and DNA testing ofrelatives of the victims.

The documentation available for each case will be collated and, the evidence divided into groups to create a genetic database of human remains with DNA samples from relatives. Some of the analyzes will be made in Argentina. .

The Argentine forensic experts were hired by the Panamanian government after the forming on January 5 of the committee to identify victims of the dictatorship. This committee is made up of by the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared, the Attorney General, Office of the President, the Red Cross and the Foreign Ministry.

The bones were exhumed by the Truth Commission (2001-2002).

MONDAY, 02 APRIL 2012

http://www.newsroompanama.com/panama/4118-identities-of-60-victims-of-dictatorship-will-be-known-in-a-year.html

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Mexico bus-truck crash leaves 43 dead

XALAPA, Mexico — A truck crashed into a passenger bus Friday in Mexico's eastern Veracruz state, killing 43 and injuring around 20 others, officials said. "In total, 43 people died in this accident" near the town of Alamo, Veracruz government spokeswoman Gina Dominguez told Milenio television late morning. The bus was traveling from the port of Coatzacoalcos to the northern border state of Coahuila when the crash occurred at around 4:30 am (0930 GMT) in the north of Veracruz state on the Gulf of Mexico. As rescue workers recovered bodies from the wreckage, officials organized the transfer of the injured to hospitals in the nearby port city of Tuxpan. "The first report we have, which we need to confirm with investigators, is that the truck's trailer came loose and hit the bus," Dominguez said. The bus passengers were agricultural workers traveling to work, according to local newspaper El Diario del Golfo, citing witnesses, on its website. Another collision between a passenger bus and a truck on a road in Jalisco state, western Mexico, left 36 hurt and one dead Friday, a state civil protection official told AFP, without giving further details. On April 5, 14 sugar cane workers died and nine were hurt when the bus they were traveling in crashed into a tree and overturned, also in Jalisco. Around 24,000 people die from road accidents in Mexico each year, according to insurance companies -- a figure almost double the annual drug violence death toll. Fri 20 April 2012 http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iRAW2whNRnb_nH6H3QCAvvK4bi5w?docId=CNG.f07951d248e08c101c9eefe7c8769715.81

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Charred wreckage litters Pakistan plane crash site

HUSSAIN ABAD, Pakistan — The smell of burning filled the air at the scene of Friday's deadly plane crash on the outskirts of Islamabad, where chunks of charred wreckage lay scattered across farmland. The Bhoja Air Boeing 737 from Karachi came down at dusk as it tried to land at the city's airport in a thunderstorm and officials say there is no hope of any of those on board, believed to number up to 130, surviving. Rescue workers in orange jumpsuits and local residents used torches to search through the wreckage after nightfall, assisted by soldiers carrying assault rifles. Part of the airline's name could be read on a large section of ripped white fuselage from the passenger cabin. Witnesses described seeing human limbs strewn over a wide area spattered with blood and an AFP reporter saw plane oxygen masks and luggage littering the wheat fields around the village of Hussain Abad. A long row of coloured sheets at the edge of the fields covered the remains of victims recovered from the crash site so far. Part of the plane's wing fell on a house in the village. The owner Intezar Hussain said it damaged a balcony but caused no casualties. "The plane came down with huge noise," his son Jaffer Hussain said. "Its pilot perhaps tried to land into the farmland. It hit trees and exploded," he said. "It all happened in front of my eyes. I rushed away to save my life. When I looked back I saw flames were coming out of the plane. "It crashed in heavy rains. There was thunder also." A large section of wing with the airline logo and an engine could be seen among the debris. There were emotional scenes at Islamabad airport as distraught relatives wept bitterly for the victims of the crash. "I had come to receive my newly wed son and daughter-in-law. My son Sajjad Ali married only 20 days back. He was coming with his wife Sania Abbas today, I had come to receive the couple," said one heartbroken old man. In the southern city of Karachi, hundreds of people gathered outside the airport to inquire about relatives who had departed on the flight to Islamabad. Women, men and children were seen crying after finding the names of loved ones on the list of passengers displayed by the airline. "My wife was on the plane, she was alone, going to see her parents," said Arshad Hussain, 27, tears rolling down his cheeks. He had married just a few months ago. "I have seen the name of my sister and her infant girl," said Mohammad Usman. "Our lives have been devastated." Fri 20 April 2012 http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipq46Vq-aps5nN1X0jSezGFf6pXQ?docId=CNG.fbce75d2eba2ecc24710f72328c3b9d9.4b1

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