Tuesday, January 04, 2005

MASS FORENSICS: YES; MASS GRAVES: NO!

The UK Guardian has a great article on the mammoth job of identifying the dead. Here's an excerpt:
Forensic experts from around the world have flown in to help identify bodies. Britain has dispatched a team of about 20 pathologists, forensic dentists, logistic experts and counsellors to help the international operation. It is being led by Australia , whose team was the first to arrive on the scene and has experience in dealing with the Bali bomb. There are two picture galleries in Phukhet town hall. The first are the noticeboards for the missing, which feature hundreds of pictures of honeymooners, holidaying families and retirees - in almost every case healthy and smiling. The second set of boards depicts the ranks of the dead - close-up photographs of the victims, most of whom have been bloated by sea water and stiffened by rigor mortis. They are horrifying images of distended, twisted, blackened children and adults turned into blood-splattered, grey balloons. It is hard to reconcile the smiling faces with the grotesque death masks. Doing so scientifically is likely to be even more difficult.
Read the whole thing HERE. Read why we must ban mass graves HERE (an earlier post).

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