As nation continue to mourn the untimely deaths of victims
of Abuja bomb blast, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) today called for
forensic identification of victims of the bomb blast. President of NMA, Osahon
Enabulele, NMA expressed shock over the monumental loss of lives as well as the
severe injuries, and called on the federal government and the FCT to use all
available human and material resources in the country to institute a full scale
forensic investigation.
On reports that there is an on-going scramble for bodies by
relatives of the victims due to lack of a uniform and centrally coordinated
operational procedure between medical authorities and the law enforcement
agents, the NMA described it as a national shame the fact that after 100 years
of nationhood, Nigeria was yet to evolve and standardize, adapt and adopt
standard operational procedures in handling bodies of victims of mass disasters
in line with international best practices.
“We bemoan the fate of several widows and children and other
relatives of disaster victims whose deaths were not properly and legally
documented,” the statement said.
“The Association therefore demands that appropriate
machinery be put on ground to discover the identity of the bodies of these
innocent Nigerians through DNA analysis. The Association insists that globally
accepted modalities of Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) and documentation
which would aid further ballistic investigation, national population
statistics, kin property inheritance as well as insurance compensation issues,
be immediately put in place.”
The group said that such victim identification is doable,
drawing attention to the remarkably successful manner in which the DANA plane
crash victims were handled, and pledging its strong support to mobilize
pathologists to work as soon as the enabling environment and logistics were
provided by the government.
The NMA also called for more imaginative ways of contending
with the security challenges in the country, especially through effective
border and community policing and the use of intelligence gathering
technologies.
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