Mina Tragedy: 57 Dead, Scores Still Unidentified, Missing
30 September 2015 08:30 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta-The death toll of Indonesians in the Mina Tragedy has risen to 57 from the previous reports of 46, according to the Head of the Mecca working area of the Indonesian Hajj Pilgrims Committee (PPIH), Arsyad Hidayat on Wednesday, September 30.
Indonesia plans to accelerate the mitigation efforts and the process to identify the Indonesian victims of the Mina incident during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
"Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi has instructed the Consular Team of the Indonesian Consulate General in Jeddah to intensify its support to the Hajj committee in accelerating the mitigation efforts," the Director of the Indonesian Citizens Protection and Legal Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, said on Tuesday.
The Foreign Ministry has been monitoring the rescue efforts through its team at the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh and the Consulate General in Jeddah. The team has been deployed in Mecca and Mina areas.
The Consular Team arrived in Mina on 25 September and has been using its network to track down Indonesian citizens.
"By using our ability to network, we can significantly accelerate the process of victim identification. Additionally, we also have the verified data," Iqbal said.
The Director said the Consul Team also had plans to access the entire data of the victims of the Mina incident on Tuesday.
Iqbal hoped that the Indonesian Consular Team can gather data by cooperating with the forensic team of Saudi Arabia after they gave approval for the same on Monday.
The Saudi health authority took pictures, physical identification and finger prints and also numbered the bodies of the victims of the tragedy.
The data is stored with the forensic team of Saudi Arabia as an identification reference database.
"We hope that after we gain access to the data, the Hajj committee will be able to immediately publish more comprehensive details relating to the Indonesian citizens who became victims in the Mina incident, particularly those who passed away," Iqbal said.
ANTARA
