Capsized vessel: Efforts on to repatriate survivors

Jakarta in contact with Islamabad, awaits DNA, dental records to identify bodies.

ISLAMABAD: With 200 passengers now believed to be dead, efforts are afoot to repatriate Pakistani survivors of last week’s boat tragedy in Indonesian waters.

The Pakistani Embassy in Indonesia is making arrangements to help out the survivors and to get custody of the recovered bodies, revealed a message sent on Tuesday to Islamabad by the embassy in Jakarta.

A tragic incident occurred last week when a boat carrying about 250 asylum-seekers from Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan sank in the sea near Prigi, Trengglek, East Java, Indonesia.

At present, six Pakistani survivors are reportedly being kept in detention centres in the city of Surabaya and the surrounding places.

The embassy team visited the Police Hospital, Surabaya on December 23 and met with Police High Commissioner Dr Didi Agus Mintadi and Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) Department, Jakarta Executive Director Dr Anton Castilani.

Dr Mintadi requested the head of the consular team to provide photographs, fingerprints/dental records and DNA reports of the parents of the deceased for matching and reconciling the same with the records obtained from each body.

Some of the survivors may be allowed to visit the hospital mortuary to identify the bodies, Head of Chancery Zafar Iqbal said. While Dr Mintadi welcomed the suggestion, he was not able to arrange the facility. All the bodies have been bagged after post-mortem and would now only be opened after the data match.

Nationalities of the deceased have not been disclosed so far.

On the basis of the discussion with hospital authorities, Chief of the Hazara tribe Sardar Sadat Ali was contacted on the night of December 22, and was asked to send in photographs, fingerprints from NADRA records, blood groups and DNA records, if available, of the missing or deceased persons along with DNA records of the parents or any other details of identification or scar marks that could facilitate the identification process.

A special cell was established at the embassy to monitor the situation immediately after the incident which has since been functional round the clock.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 28^th, 2011.