Traumatized survivors of a refugee boat wreck off Australia held a private vigil behind bars yesterday for the 30 people who died, as debate raged over Canberra’s policy on boat people arriving from Asia.
Police divers trawled undersea caves along the coastline of remote Christmas Island, but found no further bodies from Wednesday’s disaster, in which a rickety boat crowded with up to 100 Iranian, Iraqi and Kurdish asylum seekers was dashed against sharp rocks.
The 42 people rescued from the sea now faced the harrowing task of identifying their loved ones among the dead, police superintendent Gavin Ryan said, after the search for survivors was called off late on Friday.
Ryan said he expected “to have a definitive answer on how many are actually missing” by today, adding that the police focus was now on guiding survivors in identifying the victims — a task he said was about halfway complete.
“It’s excruciating for everyone,” Ryan said of the identification process. “Some people react in different ways, but it’s an extremely traumatic thing to do ... It’s very traumatic for everyone, everyone in the hospital, obviously for the survivor.”
Australian Immigration Department spokesman Peter Richards said the survivors were receiving “round the clock support” and would hold a private vigil inside the Christmas Island detention center, Australia’s main immigration compound.
“It’s a very difficult time for the survivors, but also for other people within the detention facilities. There are a number we have identified, for example, that have relatives amongst this group [on the boat],” Richards said. “The ceremony that’s held today is very much focused around the victims, the survivors and their relatives.”
More than 5,000 refugees, mostly from Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, have made their way to Australia this year on leaky boats from Indonesia, packing Christmas Island to capacity and forcing new centers to open on the mainland.
Tension has erupted into protests at the island’s detention center, where advocates say survivors of the shipwreck — who include three children orphaned by the disaster — have been segregated from other detainees.
Richards said officials had worked closely with the center’s inmates to plan yesterday’s memorial and he was “very confident that the dignified respectful ceremony will occur” and there would be no further protests.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese