Sunday 14 April 2013

Ruhango genocide survivors search for bodies of loved ones


The survivors of the 1994 genocide against Tutsis in Bweramana sector in Ruhango district ask all Rwandans especially genocide perpetrators who accepted their crimes and asked for forgiveness to give information on the whereabouts of where they buried the bodies of their victims to be laid to their final resting places.

The management of Bweramana sector says they are still carrying out the sensitization program to give information on the whereabouts of genocide victims’ bodies to be buried in respects like all genocide victims.

People who their loved ones and families members who were the victims of the 1994 genocide that annihilated more than 1 million Tutsis who have not yet found their bodies say it bothers them that after 19 years, they haven’t buried the bodies of their people.

Burying the bodies of the genocide victims gives closure and peace of mind to their family members. This is the reason why residents of Bweramana sector are pleading to anyone who has information on the whereabouts of genocide victims to make it known and be put to rest.

Eric Muhawenimana the social affairs official in Bweramana sector says people still have a tendency to withhold such kind of information especially avoiding to implicate themselves in certain cases.

“There is however a sensitization program going on to encourage people to give such information on the whereabouts of genocide victims’ bodies to be buried in respects to their final resting places” says Muhawenimana.

Like everywhere in Rwanda, the search for genocide victims’ bodies and laying them to rest in genocide memorial sites happens during the commemoration periods. In Bweramana sector, only 12 bodies of the genocide victims were found and will be buried respectfully on Saturday 13th April 2013.

Sunday 14 April 2013

http://headlines.rw/ruhango-genocide-survivors-search-for-bodies-of-loved-ones/

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Nigeria: The death traps called Nigerian roads


While the nation is battling to curtail the volume of lives being taken through insurgency in the country, the volume of lives lost to road accidents in recent times is alarming, despite the claims of the government that the nation's roads have seen improvement under the present administration. All over the country, it is the same story.

n the last two weeks, stories of carnages on our roads have been a recurrent phenomenon in most of news media all over the country. It has assumed a dimension that its occurrence has become a common place just like the gory tales of killings in the northern part of the country. Of worrisome dimension to these carnages is the fact that the rate is on the increase daily thereby prompting the question of, 'who might be the next victim'?

Nigerian roads tend to be notorious for accidents during festive periods when lots of families and friends travel to see loved ones they had not seen in a long while. At such times, the roads are usually busy. It is common to find series of accidents at this peak period but when accident becomes a common place when the roads are not busy, it calls for attention. This is the situation in all parts of the country in recent times.

On February 6, no fewer than nine people died while 19 others were injured in a motor accident in Borno. The accident occurred when two commercial buses collided near Benishiekh along Damaturu-Maiduguri Highway. Report has it the tyre of one of the commercial buses burst, a development which made the driver to lose control and the bus eventually collided with another oncoming bus near Benishiekh about 65 kilometres away from Maiduguri.

On April 9 2013, an overloaded bus on a high speed crashed into a truck parked by the road side in the city of Kano. The bus was heading to Potiskum, the commercial capital of Yobe state and all the occupants died instantly.

On April 3 this year, 18 persons died in an accident which occurred along the Kwali-Gwagwalada road, Abuja. The FRSC said that nine others sustained various degrees of injuries in the accident. The injured victims were taken to the Gwagwalada Teaching Hospital for medical attention. According to the FRSC, 96 people, including 70 males, 16 females and 10 children were involved in the crash.

According to reports from the Federal Roads Safety Commission, FRSC, that are taking the lives of the citizens with impunity.

In the last few years, no fewer than 70 persons have perished in a multiple road accident that occurred at Uromi Junction in Agbor along the ever busy Agbor-Asaba highway in Ika South Local Government Area of Delta State. Just last week, a pregnant woman and seven other persons were confirmed dead in a road crash in Delta State. The accident occurred on the Asaba-Ibusa Road last Thursday. The pregnant woman and the others were said to be traveling in a 14-seater Toyota Hiace Bus, which rammed into a tipper.

Recently, the Osun State Command of the Federal Road Commission claimed that in January, 2013 alone, there were a total number of 13 cases of fatal road accidents while the total cases of auto crash for the month amounted to twenty six.

According to the State Sector Commander, Mr Imoh Etuk, 23 persons were killed within the month while 108 people were injured, making the total numbers of causalities to be 131.

Natural events such as poor visibility during harmattan and in the night, waterlogged roads and careless driving while rain is falling could also be responsible for hazards on the road.

Others include hurdles on the road such as debris, fallen trees, faded road signs and signs obscured by foliage, erection of bumps and illegal mounting of road blocks by security agents and other agencies of government.

However, the behaviour of the man behind the wheel is central to what happens on the highway. For sure, a drunkard cannot behave like a normal person and also someone that is too hasty may end up causing an accident on the road; an aggressive and selfish driver will end up causing havoc on the road.

Recently, the Health Minister, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu said at a forum that Nigeria has the second highest road traffic accident fatalities among the 193 countries in the world adding that the trend was adversely affecting the health system in the country and hampering its attainment of Millennium Development Goals.

According to him "Road accidents have led to the death of men, women, boys and and even the unborn child, impact negatively on our ability to achieve the MDGs as most people are the youths"

The habit of road users also does not help matters as many of the drivers do not obey speed limits. This makes it difficult for drivers to control them whenever they are faced with danger.

Just last week, in what can be described as a weekend of horror, over 70 lives were consumed in a ghastly accident between Ugbogui village near Okada town in Ovia north east council area of Edo State and Ofosu in Ondo state.

It was a gory sight to behold as the bodies of innocent passengers were roasted in the fire that engulfed the two vehicles involved in the accident. LEADERSHIP Sunday gathered that one of the trucks involved in the accident belonging to Dangote Group Limited carried bags of cement had a head on collision with the tanker loaded with fuel whose front tyre busted thereby forcing it to fall on to the luxurious bus loaded with over 57 passengers.

The tanker had burst into flames and in the process, enveloped all the other vehicles even as the occupants struggled amid wailings and cries for assistance that could not come from anybody because of the profuse smoke.

Prior to the death of these over 70 passengers last weekend, 18 persons whose identities are yet to be known were reportedly burnt to death while 16 passengers were seriously injured in a multiple accident involving an 18-seater-bus and other vehicles along the same road on the day this accident happened. According to reports, this one occurred because the 18 seater bus was trying to avoid the burning vehicles and in the process, ran into the bush and also caught fire instantly.

While speaking to leadership sunday, Mr Peter Odia, the Public Relations Officer of Osarodion Transport Company urged the government to commence aggressive campaigns on road safety saying "Most road users are ignorant of traffic rules and regulations"

"It is not just enough to put vehicle on the high ways without having the prerequisite training and permits as required by the law and if you asked me it is responsible for the carnage on our roads", he said.

It is the same story in Katsina State where road accident appeared to have become a common phenomenon. Recently, the state witnessed series of major accidents leading to the loss of several lives, of which many though others escaped but with serious injuries.

One of such accidents occurred at Bindawa local government area of the state. It involved a truck carrying 40 passengers and 15 cows from Baure town to Charanchi market (a local market in the state). leadership sunday learnt that the truck lost control and somersaulted into a large ditch. Eye witnesses confirmed that six persons died as a result while 25 others sustained various degrees of injuries.

FRSC's efforts at reducing road traffic crashes on highways

Speaking with the LEADERSHIP SUNDAY on the FRSC's modus operandi as regards road traffic crashes, the Oyo State Sector Commander of the FRSC, Corps Commander Godwin Ogagaoghene, said "We are in partnership with those in public and government to ensure that our job goes well.

"The Non-government Organisations (NGOs) have come to our assistance in ensuring that we offer safety services to the people. One of such was the collaboration with an NGO which provided over 500 crash helmets for us to give to the motorcyclist in the state. We are in the process of getting reflexive jackets.

Ogagaoghene added that the state government was being supportive especially with the establishment of a road traffic agency which is not in competition but in collaboration with the FRSC to ensure that roads in the state are safe from crashes.

"With regards to road traffic crashes, our modus operandi is to ensure that our roads are constantly patrolled to ensure that our presence is felt on the roads. When a crash occurs, within 10, 15 minutes, we are at the scene," he added.

According to him, the roads are patrolled during the day for about 18 hours starting from 6.00 am to 6.00 pm that is 12 hours.

On the FRSC's efforts to check the motorists' reckless driving, overtaking, overloading to prevent further accidents, the FRSC boss noted that recklessness cuts across all categories: motorists, especially the commercial drivers, have different degrees of recklessness.

He said that the commercial drivers cannot be reached at the workshop and other gatherings; therefore they go to them at their motor parks to enlighten and educate them. "We talk to them about the ills of the wrong use of the road for instance the danger on overloading, over speeding, even show them pictures and videos to buttress our argument and this goes a long way to enforce whatever we discuss with them.

"With the regard to the private drivers among them, we use the print media to ensure that our messages are delivered to this category of motorists." Apart from this, the FRSC boss said there was a special programme tagged "Operation Zero Tolerance" which was initiated by the FRSC headquarters which has been of tremendous help in the fight of wanton road crashes on the roads, saying that the corps had been able to check some of the crashes through the programme.

On measures to curb the excesses, the FRSC Boss, Delta State Command Mrs. Ada Ajenge blamed the increasing accident rates on the driving system of the drivers who in most cases, do not obey the traffic rules.

Saying that the Road Safety Corps has mapped out strategies to curb the excessive road accidents, she explained that among the strategies is to ensure the road user offenders are brought to book through fines, adding that the laws also can be interpreted to ensure that those who fall foul of the laws are jailed.

Available statistics from the state FRSC office indicates that as at January 29 2013, eleven road crashes occurred in Katsina metropolis and its environs with 12 people feared dead.

Habu Dauda, the Katsina State Sector Commandant of the Federal Roads Safety Commission (FRSC) told LEADERSHIP SUNDAY that the major cause of accidents in Katsina State is more of human errors than the state of the roads.

Musa Babansada, a driver told Leadership Sunday that what was needed to address the rampant incidence of crashes in the state was for the FRSC to intensify its patrol and ensure offenders are punished accordingly without mercy.

The Corps Marshal Osita Chidoka, during the event said that inadequate patrol logistics affected their performance. " In the past, inadequate patrol and rescue logistics to optimally cover the wide network of roads and ensure effective enforcement and prompt rescue operations was a challenge hampering our performance.

Sunday 14 April 2013

http://allafrica.com/stories/201304140078.html

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Five killed in Belgian coach crash


Five people were killed and another five seriously injured when a Polish bus carrying Russian and Ukrainian teenagers crashed over the side of a Belgian motorway bridge this morning.

The coach carrying 40 teenagers, between 15 and 17, lost control, smashed through the barrier and plummeted from a bridge on the E34 motorway near Ranst, Antwerp at dawn, 6.30 am (4.30am GMT) on Sunday.

The driver, the tour guide and three teenagers were killed in the crash on an overnight journey from Volgograd to Paris, two people were critically injured and another three are in serious condition in local hospitals.

The absence of braking skid marks on the road have led investigators to focus on the theory that the driver of the Polish registered coach had fallen asleep at the wheel.

The bus crashed through guardrails, falling 18 feet, rolling down an embankment and ending up on its side under the motorway.

"My thoughts go to the victims. Our emergency services and authorities will make every effort to help them," said Elio Di Rupo, the Belgian Prime Minister on Twitter this morning.

Lode Hofmans, the mayor of Broechem, the local town where emergency rescue attempts were coordinated, said that the authorities were bracing themselves for the grim task of dealing with the parents of the crash victims.

"They were on their way to Paris, but it is still unclear whether it was a school or youth club trip," he said. "At the moment we are already inundated with calls from Russia, the news is apparently already seeping through."

The accident has stirred memories and comparisons with a coach crash in March last year when a bus carrying Belgian school children hit the side of the Sierre Tunnel in Switzerland, killing 22 and six adults accompanying them.

Sunday 14 April 2013

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/9993005/Five-killed-in-Belgian-coach-crash.html

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University of Tenessee using donated corpses in mass grave project with international aspirations


Researchers wanted to bury the 10 bodies on the south bank of Fort Loudoun Lake. They had to do it by hand.

The brush, though bare in winter, was too dense and too sloped for machines. Instead, scientists in February cleared a path leading to the spot where, shovel by shovel, they dug four holes.

One grave now holds the piled remains of six people. Another holds three, and another a single body.

A fourth was dug out and then refilled only with dirt, a control for the experiment.

For the next three years University of Tennessee scientists will monitor these fresh burial sites from the sky, from the ground, through sampling and in different light spectrums to determine if the mass graves can be detected from afar.

If the remote sensing technology they plan to use works, it could mean huge gains in the ability to uncover clandestine graves around the world and to prosecute the killers.

“Mass graves are the most profound example of evil, and you may not be able to get away with it much longer if we can make this work,” said Michael Medler, a geography professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., who helped conceive the project nearly a decade ago.

Medler is close friends with lead UT researcher Amy Mundorff, who is perhaps best known in her field for helping to identify the remains of some of the thousands of victims of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. She has been at UT three years, and she took the job with the hope that she could finally pursue this dream project.

The bodies being used for the unique experiment are all among donations made to UT’s internationally famous Forensic Anthropology Center, or the “Body Farm.”

It is the oldest and most established of a handful of research facilities around the country dedicated to studying the decomposition of human remains. Before now, research at the facility has been mostly used to help law enforcement and to facilitate domestic criminal cases.

If this broader, global experiment succeeds, it could propel the reputation of the university and its anthropology department to greater heights.

Exposing atrocities

Evidence of the horrors humans commit against each other exists in nearly every region of the world.

In Guatemala, three decades after his bloody dictatorship, Gen. Efrain Rios Montt is currently on trial concerning accusations that he sent soldiers to rape and kill thousands of Mayan villagers.

In Argentina, a forensic anthropology team trained by U.S. experts is still recovering and identifying the “Los Desaparecidos,” citizens accused of being Marxists who went missing during the country’s “Dirty War” of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Human-rights investigators are searching for victims in Libya, Sudan and Syria, where ongoing civil wars and genocide threaten the safety of both citizens and visitors trying to help them.

Some investigators already use before-and-after satellite images and ground-penetrating radar to find clues about possible graves, said Stefan Schmitt, director of the international forensic program with the U.S.-based Physicians for Human Rights.

“Remote sensing has always been a really big interest, especially as technology becomes more and more accessible,” Schmitt said. “But the problem is that it’s not definitive. You can show me the picture, and I can’t say anything until I get in there and dig a hole.

“Technology has always been limited by that step where you have to go in, and that makes a difference in places like Darfur (in Sudan) or Syria or other places where there are allegations of mass graves.”

UT researchers concede there may never be certainty that the blips that show up in the images are human graves. But they hope that by using multiple kinds of technology, they can at least predict them with higher probability.

When the International Commission on Missing Persons was established in Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of the 1996 G7 Summit in France, it and other human-rights groups made a chilling discovery: When investigators got too close, someone would dig up the graves of victims killed in the Balkans conflict and move them. Teams were using satellite images to track the movements of the graves, but it wasn’t always successful.

While the images can pick up large graves filled with hundreds of people, it’s more difficult to locate the more common plots with 10 or 20 or 30 bodies, said Dawnie Steadman, director of the Forensic Anthropology Center at UT who has also done extensive human-rights work in Argentina, Cyprus and Spain.

“So the focus of this project is on those smaller graves and trying to see if we can get the acumen of the technology to be that fine-grained,” said Steadman, whose role in the project is more of a logistics coordinator. “Are they only sensitive over fresh graves, and do we lose that sensitivity over time?

“If there’s a no-fly zone and we can’t get airplanes in there to do this technology, we’re still dependent on satellites. But what technology is going to be useful (in the field) depends on how long it’s been and how old we think the grave is,” Steadman said.

If forensic investigators can find the clandestine graves early on, they can monitor them using this technology even as the conflict on the ground wages on. When it’s safer to enter the country, organizations will know exactly where to look for the victims, said Mundorff.

To do this, UT is looking to cross-reference at least two kinds of remote sensing.

One technology, LiDAR, which is short for Light Detection and Ranging, uses a laser to trace the contours on the ground and look for subtle elevation changes. Initially, mass graves appear as mounds after they’re dug, but over time, as the human remains decompose, depressions form in the ground.

Related document: Graphic illustrating how LiDAR scanner technology is used in the detection of mass graves

The other technology, multi-spectral imagery, can look at what’s being reflected off the ground in different light spectra, such as blue, green, red, infrared and so forth. Different materials are reflected across the spectrum with specific signatures, said Katie Corcoran, a lead graduate student at UT who is using the project for her dissertation.

“If you know vegetation looks a certain way, but in this image it looks different, maybe that’s because it’s disturbed,” Corcoran said. “And then on top of that is a layer of LiDAR data that shows an elevation difference, maybe a mound or a depression, and it happens to be the same spot. You can say maybe that this is a manmade disturbance. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to say this is a grave.”

The bulk of Medler’s work at Western Washington has been in studying landscapes after forest fires, something with no obvious link to identifying the remains of dead people, Mundorff’s specialty.

But to do wildfire reconstructions, Medler has used the very technology now at work at the Body Farm.

They first compared their expertise during dinner while both were living on the East Coast. Medler is a college friend of Mundorff’s husband, Kurt.

Dawnie Steadman, director of the University of Tennessee’s Forensic Anthropology Center, maps a grave containing a donor’s remains in February. The mass-grave research project will observe the bodies for three years, detecting changes in the ground and looking at multispectral imagery.

When Mundorff left the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office to pursue her doctorate in Canada, those talks evolved over camping trips.

They brainstormed ideas while climbing granite massifs in Squamish, British Columbia’s outdoors mecca. They would nail down details at the pub afterward.

“We ended up talking about doing a project to look at clandestine graves, and (Medler) suggested using LiDAR, which had never been done before,” Mundorff said.

They considered different methodologies — using existing mass graves versus creating their own. They looked for funding, but struggled to find a grant that matched their criteria.

Medler even had a graduate student plotting on a map mass graves around the world. They talked of Mundorff joining Western Washington as an adjunct faculty member just to get the project rolling. But without funding or a facility where they could conduct the experiment, the project stalled.

Tennessee, however, had the facility, the resources and the interest in helping Mundorff launch a mass-grave project. UT even had a newly-acquired, untouched piece of land adjacent to the existing Body Farm. Fresh land was needed to be sure the technology doesn’t pick up chemical remnants of previous bodies.

Mundorff got the offer from UT during the spring of 2009 and arrived the following January.

Not long after, she got an email from Katie Corcoran, an anthropologist working for the Seminole Tribe in Florida to recover cultural artifacts on its land. Corcoran was familiar with LiDAR from her work in Florida and had recently read an article on researchers at her alma mater, the University of Central Florida, who were using the technology to detect Mayan ruins hidden in the Belize jungle.

A mentor suggested Corcoran look up Mundorff, who had already made a name for herself in the anthropology field.

In that 2009 email, the Floridian pitched almost the exact same project that Mundorff had been privately mulling for nearly 10 years. Corcoran soon found herself heading to Knoxville to continue her studies. The project’s foundation had been formed.

Early days

It takes three wrong turns, two phone calls and an argument with Google Maps to eventually find the Body Farm.

That’s intentional.

A brick building with an A-frame roof sits on the South Knoxville site near the University of Tennessee Medical Center hidden from view of the access road. Immediately behind the building is a fence. Behind the fence is the plot of land that hosts UT’s new research project.

The closely guarded swath of land on the banks of Fort Loudoun Lake is unremarkable, covered with fallen hardwoods, discarded oak leaves and poison ivy. There’s a steep incline as the ridge slopes down to the water’s edge.

Once Mundorff arrived at UT, it took another two years to get the mass-graves project under way. There was a change of leadership at the Forensic Anthropology Center, which turned out to be promising for the initiative because it included a new director with heavy interest in human rights — Steadman. But delays in 2011 and 2012 in getting the fence built around the new land also created hiccups because the work would have to be put through a public bidding process.

By the time the fence quietly went up in January, Mundorff had been at UT for three years and Corcoran had been a graduate student for almost two.

The down time, however, also helped the experiment and concept to expand significantly, cutting across various departments.

Now, two molecular anthropology graduate students are working on a DNA co-mingling project to see if it’s possible for the genetic material of two people to seep into and contaminate each other’s remains, which would make it difficult to identify victims.

Two agriculture professors will study the soil ecology as bodies in the graves break down. Another is cataloguing plant species in the area to see if they change as the decomposition releases nitrogen into the environment.

When the project’s three years are up, the facility will do a workshop for international workers on how to excavate mass graves. It’s a course that has only been offered with animal remains — never with humans.

“As she developed this project, (Mundorff) wanted to make it as robust as possible, to have as many different technologies and researchers involved as possible,” Steadman said.

But there is still one looming obstacle: money.

The project needs about $200,000, possibly more.

Corcoran hoped to receive a grant from a private company to do the multi-spectral imaging, and she and Mundorff hope to receive access to ground LiDAR technology from a resource outside the university.

But the group still needs funding to test the soil and plant samples they collect and to gather aerial LiDAR scans that could be more precise and in line with what would be used in the field. A pilot study Mundorff recently completed could be the key to the funding they need.

To boost her theory that buried corpses release nitrogen into the surrounding soil and vegetation — and that those chemicals are visible to the remote sensing technologies — Mundorff has already conducted a small-scale pilot study.

In January 2011, she buried one body at the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility at Texas State University, San Marcos.

To conduct the baseline study, Mundorff needed land that had never hosted decomposing bodies before, and UT still hadn’t erected the fence for the new land here. The Texas State facility, however, was founded only five years ago and has a largely untouched 26 acres.

So, Mundorff paid a graduate student in San Marcos to monitor the site weekly over several months. Once the body was buried, however, Texas was hit with one of the worst droughts in recent memory, slowing the regrowth of vegetation around the grave. The results from her first batch of 37 samples were lackluster.

“I sent off samples initially and got results that seemed like there might be something there, but it wasn’t as clear of a pattern as we had hoped,” Mundorff said.

Disappointed but not discouraged, she waited longer, this time submitting 100 plant samples collected over 18 months to see if the nitrogen levels had increased. If significant nitrogen changes couldn’t be found in the samples, there was no chance that it could be picked up remotely. If it can be picked up remotely, though, it’s important to verify it chemically, Mundorff said.

“We sent off a bunch (of samples) from a little bit later in the project when things were really growing back better, and that’s when we got our awesome results,” she said. Her final samples were taken in August, a year and a half after the body was buried.

Though the findings are still being analyzed, the new results could show that the research team is headed in the right direction. The results could also help raise money to finance the rest of the project.

Mundorff will be replicating in Knoxville much of what she did in Texas on a larger scale. She will collect plant samples for processing and monitor the site with regular photographs. Corcoran, meanwhile, will collect data from additional LiDAR and multi-spectral scans, which the researchers hope to do at least once a year, if not more frequently. Other researchers will monitor the soil with additional samples and keep tabs on new or changing plant species.

The project may also expand beyond UT’s facility.

To prove the technology’s effectiveness when applied in real-world conflicts, researchers want to replicate it in another climate, possibly at the Texas State facility. Options are limited because only a few body farms exist in the U.S.

Mundorff has some ideas, though, and hopes to start a joint experiment in the near future, depending on funding.

Medler, meanwhile, also plans to do an applied version of the UT experiment — that is, using the same technology over known existing mass graves that have yet to be dug up.

Medler hopes the U.S. government will declassify older images of known mass grave sites from satellites and other remote technology. Those baseline images could be compared to new LiDAR and multi-spectral images to see if the mass graves show up.

In the meantime, though he’s thousands of miles away, Medler will continue to serve as a consultant on the project at UT and perhaps help interpret data.

Technology is becoming more advanced and more affordable so quickly that if this team of researchers can prove it works, applying it internationally could happen in “years, not decades,” he said.

“The most exciting part of the project is conceptually making it harder for people to feel like they can get away with these things, even decades later,” Medler said. “Because we will see it.”

Sunday 14 April 2013

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/apr/14/body-of-evidence-ut-using-donated-corpses-in/

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51 Accident Victims Buried In Benin


A mass burial was Saturday conducted in Benin City for the 51 victims of the multiple accident that occurred at Igbogui village, located along Benin/Ore expressway, in the western part of Nigeria.

The accident which occurred Friday April 5, involved a luxury bus belonging to the Young Shall Grow Motors, an articulated vehicle belonging to the Dangote Group and a fuel-laden petrol tanker, left scores of people dead and properties worth millions of naira burnt.

The remains of the accident victims, wrapped in plastic bags, were conveyed to 1st Cemetery-venue of the mass burial in several trucks.

Apostle Barnabas Chukwukere of End Time Soul Winners Outreach, Benin City, who conducted a brief Mass at the Cemetery, prayed for the repose of the souls of the victims, adding that a time has been apportioned for every man to die.

He appealed to the relatives of the deceased who were present to accept what has happened and move on with their lives. Family members and friends of the accident victims, who wore black attires, were present at the cemetery to witness the interment of their loved ones.

Most of them cried and wailed, while the bodies were being interred, as they bemoaned what became of their loved ones.

The remains were interred at the First Cemetery in Benin, after being transported from the UBTH mortuary.

Mr Aikonogie Wilfred, UBTH’s Chief Mortician who spoke to newsmen at the cemetery, said the 51 bodies were given mass burial because the bodies could not be identified. He said those who tried to identify them were relatives of the accident victims when they visited the hospital earlier.

Wilfred disclosed that two corpses had been identified and taken away by the accident victims’ relatives adding that identification and burial only involved bodies of dead accident victims brought to the hospital.

At the cemetery, concerned family members, relatives and friends wailed as the bodies sealed in a bag were deposited into the grave from a truck.

Odiamah Chika, who said he lost a mother, niece and a nephew, expressed regret that Nigeria had lost more lives to road accidents than it did during the 1967-1970 Nigerian Civil War.

He lamented the absence of comprehensive data among agencies in the transport sector to ascertain the authenticity of the figures of those who die in road mishaps.

Sunday 14 April 2013

http://www.dailytimes.com.ng/article/51-human-bodies-sealed-bags

http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2013/04/13/51-accident-victims-buried-in-benin/

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