Monday, 28 December 2009 18:33 Usa Pichai
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - The police in Thailand have identified the remains of 24 victims of the devastating Tsunami that struck southern Thailand in 2004 as those of Burmese.
However, the police have not yet been able to contact the families or the Burmese authorities.
Pol Lt Gen Danaithorn Wongthai, Commander of the Forensic Police Office, of the Thai Royal Police said that 398 bodies of victims that were buried in Ban Bangmaroun Cemetery in Thailand’s Phang Nga Province have already been identified.
“There are 24 more bodies, which were identified as those of Burmese but no contact has been established with their relatives. The Thai authorities have also contacted the Burmese authorities four times to take possession of the remains but there has been no response,” he said, according to a report on Thai News Agency website’s on Saturday.
Nassir Archwarin, a staff of the Thai Action Committee for Democracy in Burma (TACDB), a Thailand-based NGO, which coordinated between employers, relatives of Burmese worker victims and the Thai authorities, told Mizzima on Monday that the TACDB has stopped its work on Burmese Tsunami victims over the last two years, while waiting for results of the remaining to be identified.
“Relatives and employers had reported that about 160 Burmese were missing till 2007. However, the police have not yet contacted us about the 24 identified Burmese bodies,” he said.
According to TACDB, between January and October 2006, a total of 120 Burmese bodies were identified and cremated in Ban Bangmaroun Cemetery.
The process of identification was hampered by discrepancies in identification. Some Burmese workers used different names in Thailand, and Burmese authorities were not involved in the identification process.
TACDB and the International Organization for Migration have collaborated to help families and employers of migrant worker victims since May 2005 till 2007.
The Thailand Tsunami Victim Identification Center moved from Phang Nga province to the Thai Royal Police Office in Bangkok in 2007 but the identification process continued.
The bodies were interred in concrete-lined aluminum coffins, which preserve bodies longer for possible identification.
The December 26, 2004 Tsunami-the deadliest in recorded history-was produced by a 9.1 magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sumatra in Indonesia and killed nearly 200,000 people throughout the region and beyond. Nearly 5,400 people were killed in southern Thailand, including Thai nationals, foreign tourists and migrant workers.
The process of identification for migrant workers was delayed given the lack cooperation from Burmese junta officials in verifying victims’ national identities.
Monday, December 28, 2009
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