No final resting place for many of victims of Andaman tsunami

Wreaths are placed at a white memorial wall in Phuket to remember those who passed away in the tsunami disaster on December 26, 2004.

"According to the results of DNA checks [and further identification detective work], there were 286 Thais, 93 Burmese and 60 Westerners," said an official from the Thai Tsunami Victim Identification Information Management Centre (TTVIIMC) at a symposium on "Tsunami and Nargis: Lessons Learned from the Aftermath of Recent Natural Catastrophes in Thailand and Burma" at Chulalongkorn University.

The symposium was coorganised yesterday by Chulalongkorn University's Social Research Institute and the Thai Action Committee for Democracy in Burma (TACDB) to mark the fourth anniversary of the tsunami.

The official said that the TTVIIMC had asked the Burmese embassy in Bangkok to decide whether the embassy would return Burmese corpses to their families in Burma but the embassy had not responded.

"We have asked the Foreign Affairs Ministry to contact the Burmese embassy in Bangkok about what the embassy wants us to do with the 24 Burmese corpses identified. We haven't heard from the embassy," he said.

Over the past four years, the TTVIIMC has returned 3,251 corpses to the victims' families. There were 2,813 returned in 2005, 407 in 2006, 26 last year and only five this year, he said.

"We have been trying all ways to get more information so that we can return the bodies of victims to their families," the official said.

Kokaew Wongphan, a TACDB researcher, said that Burmese vic¬tims of The Tsunami had not received compensation like others because they were migrant workers.

"Burmese workers and their families who survived The Tsunami still have to try to help each other. They have formed a selfhelp trust for health fees and fines when they are arrested," she said.

A representative from the Labour and Welfare Department admitted that it was difficult to give compensation to the Burmese victims, who had no legal documents.