HOW TO: Trace missing persons

Photo: ICRC

ICRC tracing efforts date back to first and second world wars

BANGKOK, 16 March 2011 (IRIN) – Tsunamis, earthquakes, and violent conflicts leave in their wake chaos and unpredictability. In these and other situations, hasty evacuations, rushed hospitalizations, and sudden deaths separate children from their parents, leaving many missing while others wait anxiously for news. In such situations, tracing – tracking down missing relatives – is vital for family reunification.

Japan’s 11 March triple disaster – a 9.0 degree earthquake followed by a tsunami and radiation leaks – presents the latest challenge for tracing.

The Japanese government has deployed 100,000 troops – 20,000 of whom are still blocked – to lead relief efforts.  With the help of 9,500 fire-fighters and 920 police, 22,184 people have been rescued as of 15 March.

But state media reports at least 15,000 thousand more remain missing as relief workers – including more than 800 urban search and rescue workers from 15 countries – are blocked by continuous aftershocks (290 recorded as of 16 March), tsunami alerts, a growing nuclear radiation exclusion zone, a still impenetrable coastline and fires.

UK-based NGO Save the Children estimates up to 100,000 children have been displaced.

Against this multiple-disaster backdrop, IRIN asked experts about current best practice on how to reunite families.

The first phase is to find separated children, register them at the national Red Cross society, and place them in temporary families while following up on leads to the location of parents, according to Corinna Chasky, child protection adviser at Save the Children.

The National Police Agency has established special call centres, through which guidance and support are provided to find missing family members.

The Nippon Telephone and Telegraph company has started an emergency message service where people can dial and leave messages.

Communities can be alerted to look out for missing children through radio or newspapers.

“Use information and clues from the child’s memories. Flyers, posters, and word of mouth spread messages through the local community and police networks where communication systems have broken down from the disaster,” said Chasky.

Mapping

When children are found wandering the streets alone, parents and caretakers can be traced by re-walking the area and mapping out potential locations.

“Tracing starts immediately in the area where a child is found then spreads to the surrounding areas,” according to Annette Lyth, senior emergency specialist in child protection at the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Children under five who are too young to provide information on their addresses can have their photos posted on community boards with messages to locate caregivers.

New technology

Text messages are a rapid means to disseminate information and restore contact between family members. Satellite phones can be used in areas left without telephones, such as early this year in southeastern Brasil where flooding and mudslides left families devastated and without any means of communication with relatives in other parts of the country.

“Advances in technology have had a major impact on tracing, mainly by speeding up the transmission of information to huge numbers of people,” according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Central Tracing Agency.

The ICRC started tracing in the late 1800s to alert families to the whereabouts and well-being of detained relatives. It currently relays hundreds of thousands of messages linking families back together and providing the peace of mind and closure so often absent in times of crises.

In 2009 alone, more than 253,000 messages were collected and delivered. Tracing assisted the repatriation of Congolese PoWs, and enabled nearly 200 video calls between detainees and their families in Afghanistan.

Following Haiti’s earthquake in January 2010, Google developed an open source web application Person Finder, which is a registry and message board for survivors, family and friends to post and search for information about one another’s whereabouts following a natural disaster. Up until now, following five natural disasters, the registry has collected more than 200,000 names.

Though the site states the service does not review, update or verify the accuracy of data, it did not stop one user from writing in to the site on 13 March:

“My family searched for my auntie that lives in Japan on here, and it came up with she is dead. To really think that she was gone was upsetting… Moments later we got [in] contact with her and found out she was alive and well. To think moments before we all thought she was dead is sickening and this is your fault providing false info.”

ICRC’s Family Links website

Within two weeks of the earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010, more than 26,000 missing people were located using the ICRC’s Family Links website where people can search for missing people, and submit knowledge on the whereabouts of survivors.

Since 2009, more than 83,000 names of people wishing to contact relatives, or people with clues about missing relatives, have been entered into the data system.

“It enables people to communicate with one another and strives to reunite separated family members, to locate missing relatives and to recover and identify human remains,” according to the ICRC 2009 Annual Report.

The website is currently up and running to find missing people from the tsunami that hit Japan following the 11 March earthquake.

While tracing has been part and parcel of ICRC activities for over 100 years, other agencies currently undertaking tracing activities include Save the Children, UNICEF, Plan International and Refugees United.

“Preventing family separation is the best form of social protection,” said Chasky of Save the Children.

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source http://www.irinnews.org

DISASTERS: Better understanding of impact on lives needed

Photo: Ingmar Zahorsky/Flickr

Floods caused havoc in most instances in Asia

JOHANNESBURG, 25 January 2011 (IRIN) – In 2010, five of the most devastating disasters, measured in loss of lives, goods and infrastructure, occurred in Asia. Investing in disaster planning could go a long way to keeping the number of casualties down, experts say.

“Disasters in Asia are largely due to floods and, in the second instance, storms. I think there is an awareness building up for flood management, as agricultural crops are frequently destroyed, as well as infrastructure, but not enough,” said Debarati Guha-Sapir, director of the Belgium-based Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).

Poor evidence of the impact of a natural disaster on human lives and livelihoods at micro-level on was a major reason why governments were not proactive about disaster risk reduction, said Guha-Sapir. For instance, there was a lack of understanding of the short-term and long-term impacts of a flood on a village.

A recent study by CRED in Orissa, a flood-prone province in India, showed that children in flood-affected villages suffered significantly higher levels of chronic malnutrition compared to similar equally poor children in villages that had escaped flooding.

The international aid community, with their focus on the short-term response to disasters, was partly to blame, Guha-Sapir said.

She suggested that in instances where countries were unable to strengthen the response at a local level, international and national aid agencies should try to empower communities to better cope with disaster.

“It’s critical for local governments, city leaders and their partners to incorporate climate change adaptation in urban planning,” Margareta Wahlström, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Disaster Reduction, said in a statement.

“What we call ‘disaster risk reduction’ – and what some are calling ‘risk mitigation’ or ‘risk management’ – is a strategic and technical tool for helping national and local governments to fulfil their responsibilities to citizens.” It was “no longer optional”, she noted.

Earthquakes, floods, a heat-wave and cold-wave were among the 373 natural disasters recorded in 2010. Together, they killed over 296,800 people, affected nearly 208 million others, and cost almost US$110 billion, said CRED.

Natural hazards in China and Pakistan accounted for more than US$27 billion worth of damage and nearly 8,500 fatalities.

Earthquakes in China killed 2,968 people in April 2010, and 1,691 people died in floods between May and August. A further 1,765 were killed by mudslides, landslides or rock falls, triggered by heavy rains and flooding in August.

In Pakistan nearly 2,000 people died in floodwater that covered one-fifth of the land after torrential rains pelted the northwest, swelling the Indus and its tributaries from July to August in 2010.

An earthquake in Haiti killed over 222,500 people in January, and a heat wave in the Russian summer caused around 56,000 fatalities, making 2010 the deadliest year in at least two decades.

CRED also highlighted the anomalies in measuring losses because of the enormous economic differences.

“Haiti, which led the list with by far the highest numbers of deaths, fell to the fourth place in the rank of the economic damage list,” said Guha-Sapir. Chile, which was hit by an earthquake in February 2010 and had the seventh highest number of fatalities, climbed to the top of the list of countries suffering financial losses.

“This is a good example of the inadequacy of how we measure losses, as human lives are not included in this measure. Also, as property values in Chile are much higher than in Haiti and insurance penetration is higher, the losses are also higher.”

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source http://www.irinnews.org

Dear President Obama,

I write to you out of a desperate concern for the presentconsequences of U.S. Sudan policy under special envoy Scott Gration.  On February 11 of this year GeneralGration declared that, The Government of Sudan has taken great stepsto lift restrictions on UNAMID [UN/African Union Mission in Darfur]. This assessment is sharplycontradicted by facts on the ground. General Gration went on to say, We’ve seen greatimprovement of access for UNAMID and for the international NGOs [nongovernmental humanitarian organizations]. But again all evidence ”including thatprovided by the organizations themselves” makes clear that both claims weregross misrepresentations, governed more by an expedient desire to present anartificially encouraging picture of the
situation in Darfur than by anythingactually achieved in negotiations with the National Islamic Front/NationalCongress Party regime in Khartoum.

As if to underscore the significance of General Gration’s misrepresentations of humanitarian realities in Darfur, Catholic Relief Services announced Friday, March 25, 2011, that the Khartoum regime has forcedthe organization to cease its life-saving
activities in West Darfur. The regimefirst suspended CRS operations in late January, even as it was in theprocess of expelling the important French medical relief organization M©decinsdu Monde.  Both aresubstantial losses of humanitarian capacity in Darfur, but in remote andwar-ravaged West Darfur, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) was the essential actorin providing food to more than 400,000 people in the populous corridors northand south of el-Geneina, the state capital.
There have been no food distributions since January: bothFebruary and March distributions were missed, and CRS has now removed its international staff and let go its large Sudanese national staff ”the key workers in achallenging and often very dangerous environment.

As Darfur approaches this year’s hunger gap ”April/Maythrough October” the situation for the people in West Darfur looks increasingly grim.  There are reports from theground of people already dying from malnutrition-related causes, especiallyamong children under five. People who have gone two months without regular fooddistributions will soon become desperate, and more likely to abandon thedin search of other sources of food.  Closing down the camps and forcingdisplaced persons to return home, by any means necessary, has long been apriority for the Khartoum regime, and this was confirmed all too clearly in itsominous New Strategy for Darfur ”promulgated last September, and enthusiastically and repeatedly endorsed by your envoy, General Gration.  That endorsement has served toencourage the regime in pursuing its highly threatening policies towards thecamps.

Again, what is most worrying about CRS’s departure from West Darfur is that they have been the only significant organization enabling theUN’s World Food Program to distribute food: there is no back-up capacity.
Indeed, CRS was already the back-up topreviously expelled international aid organizations: thirteen of the mostdistinguished humanitarian groups in the world were expelled by Khartoum in March2009, representing roughly 50 percent of aid capacity in Darfur.  General Gration, whom you appointed thesame month to his present position, has consistently misrepresented the extentof lost capacity and overstated what has been replaced.  He has been joined in this dismayingdisingenuousness by your frequent ad hoc envoy to Sudan, Senator John Kerry.

By failing to accept the seriousness of the situation, by failing to pressure Khartoum adequately on the need for unfettered and unimpeded humanitarian access, General Gration has over the past two years allowed the situation to degenerate badly.  But the withdrawal of CRS and its very substantial capacityis especially worrisome: there is now simply no replacement capacity available, no organization in the humanitarian theafter that can assume responsibility for distributing food to more than 400,000 needy human beings.  Given the rampant insecurity that Khartoum allows to prevail throughout West Darfur ”by means of its brutally rapacious militia and paramilitary forces” farming is unlikely. Moreover, the CRS programs to provide seeds and agricultural assistance have also been ended—along with other humanitarian programs in Darfur serving an additional 100,000 people.

The potential for catastrophe here, Mr. President, is extraordinary ”dwarfing in prospective loss of life anything we have seen in Japan or the Middle East.  And yet your special envoy has not spoken about this crisis ”even as it has been clearly in evidence
forseveral weeks prior to the official announcement by CRS” nor is there anyevidence that he appreciates the need for an extremely rapid emergency response.  His blithe assessment of last month We’ve seen great improvement of access for the international NGOs” is a shocking example of either ignorance or disingenuousness; either would be culpable in the extreme.

Even as Darfur faces unprecedented humanitarian shortfalls because of insecurity, lack of access, and obstruction by the Khartoum regime ”the worst overall situation since 2004 is the current assessment by a number of independent observers” the rest of your Sudan policylies in shambles.
The Doha (Qatar)peace process has become irrelevant; Darfuris in all quarters have come todespise General Gration; and the belated
appointment of Dane Smith cannotchange the current dynamic in peace negotiations without a great deal morecommitment from higher up in your administration.

This is especially true because Khartoum feels that having allowed for a generally peaceful South Sudan self-determination referendum, it has completed its part of a deal fashioned by General Gration,whereby the U.S. for its part will normalize relations and remove the Khartoum regime from the State Department list of terrorism-sponsoring nations.  But this deal is as cynical, ormisguided, as General Gration’s claim about humanitarian access in Darfur.  For leading up to and following the referendum, Khartoum has made of the Abyei region an acute and highly dangerous crisis ”one that threatens to bring war again to the South,
especially in theoil regions.  Recent information from tthe ground (UNMIS), as well as imagery from the Satellite Sentinel Project, reveals a military posture by Khartoum’s forces in and aroundAbyei that can have only one goal: taking control of most of Abyei, includingAbyei town, in order to negotiate the final status of Abyei on basis of militaryseizure.

This seizure may take place gradually, withground forces and militia elements moving incrementally southward ”as appears tobe the case presently” or with a much larger and more rapid military offensive, using the substantial armor, mechanized infantry power, artillery, advanced rocket launchers, and air power that are either deployed in the regioncurrently or a short distance away. Such a large offensive would certainly be triggered by any effort on thepart of the Sudan Peopl’s Liberation Army (SPLA) to bring significant defensivemilitary pressure to bear anywhere in Abyei.  Khartoum’s actions to date ”including yet again bombing areasin South Sudan” have brought the SPLA to the point where it feels it must respond, which is in all likelihood Khartoum’s goal.

How did Khartoum come to believe that it couldseize Abyei and negotiate further the region’s final status andboundaries?  Here again yourspecial envoy, General Gration, has badly misread the character and instincts of the NIF/NCP regime.  Last October he signaled U.S. support for a proposal from Khartoum to divide Abyeiyet further between the North and South.
Although the State Department subsequently tried to suggest that therewas no U.S. proposal on Abyei, several participants in
the negotiations ”including SPLM minister of regional cooperation Deng Alor” are quite clear that General Gration quickly and eagerly sided with the proposal to divide Abyei yet again.  This directly contradicts the terms of the Abyei Protocol (2004), a linchpin of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2005), and also the ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (The Hague, July 2009)” accepted in advance by both the Khartoum regime and the Southern leadership as final and binding.

Khartoum, perceiving that the U.S was willing to compromise yet further, has undertaken its extremely dangerous military gambitin Abyei, and yet there has been only bland, even-handed exhortation by yourWhite House, which does nothing to convince Khartoum that your administration understands the very different diplomatic and moral equities of the two parties.  The lack of a truly principled commitment to the Abyei Protocol and the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration reveals too much about the expedient fashion in which General Gration has formulated his policies, or more accurately his reactive decisions.

This absence of a clear policy, other than accommodating the Khartoum regime at every possible moment of dispute, has had a profound effecton the perceptions of U.S. policy by Sudanese from all walks of life and allcorners of Sudan.  I know from manyscores of conversations and communications with Sudanese ”especially from the South and Darfur” that General Gration has brought your administration into disgrace, and left U.S. policy going forward with the burden of Sudanese skepticism and bitterness at how they have been treated over the past two critical years.

The bill of indictment for General Gration’s tenure is much longer, Mr. President, but all too consistent with the key issues I’ve highlighted here.  Expediency anddisingenuousness have been his diplomatic tools, and they have all too predictably worked to create a set of circumstances in which vast human suffering and destruction may be precipitated at any moment.  Darfur has been effectively de-coupled from the largest bilateral issue between the U.S. and Khartoum ”certainly from the regime’s
point of view” even as atrocity crimes ofthe worst sort continue to be perpetrated by Khartoum and its militia proxies.  The coming famine in West Darfur ”and famine is the word that seems most appropriate at the moment” has been engineered by Khartoum, with no resistaspecial envoy.  Parts of Abyei are already in flames,and escalation seems inevitable. And the U.S. has nothing more to show for its efforts than a Southern self-determination referendum that is even now being actively and dangerously undermined by Southern renegade militia forces supported by Khartoum.

Nor has there been any progress in democratizing governancein Khartoum, where flagrant human rights abuses are the order of the day. As SPLM leaders have recently told me in the most direct fashion possible, unlessthe process of democratization begins in the North ”unless the NIF/NCP regime isforced to open political space for opposition parties and forces” it is highlyunlikely that peace will be sustained after Southern independence on July 9,2011.  And yet this pressure on Khartoum over its brutal domestic repression has been entirely missing during the tenure of General Gration, signaling to the regime that there will be no costs in relations with the U.S. no matter how appalling its human rights record or how politically ruthless it chooses to be.

General Gration is soon to leave his position, though Ibelieve his appointment to be ambassador to Kenya is deeply mistaken, especially given the important challenges facing our diplomatic leadership inNairobi.  But the damage he leaves behind, the threats he leaves unaddressed, the dangers he has allowed to fester ”all oblige on your part, Mr. President, a sober recognition of General Gration’s destructive legacy, and a near-term commitment to ensure that officials from the highest levels of your administration conduct an urgent review of the consequences of the past two years of our Sudan policy.  It is far past time to re-set the U.S.course of action vis-a-vis Khartoum, and this should begin with a suspension ofany process of normalization or change in the present regime of sanctions andthe status of diplomatic relations. The immediate demands should be that the regime fully abide by agreements it has already signed, both for Abyei and for humanitarian access inDarfur.  A strong and unambiguous signal is required, given the
immediacy of dangers faced by many Sudanese populations in the South, in Darfur, in the Nuba Mountains, and in southern Blue Nile.  I believe you personally should send that signal, Mr. President.

If your administration simply continues on the course set byGeneral Gration, your administration will bear increasing moral responsibility for the many hundreds of thousands of lives presently acutely endangered by his actions and decisions of the past two years.

Sincerely,

Eric Reeves, Professor of English Language and Literature
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063

March 27, 2011