Criminals and opportunists exploit tsunami tragedy

Criminals and opportunists exploit tsunami tragedy

Agence France-Presse, Colombo

From hoax tsunami warnings to fake rescue workers looting bodies and survivors being sexually and financially exploited -- Asia's tragedy has brought out not only the best but the worst in human nature.

While the world has mounted an unprecedented response to help victims of the devastating waves that wiped out entire communities, criminal elements, opportunists and even survivors are taking advantage of the disaster.

In Sri Lanka, reports have emerged that some survivors driven from their homes may have been molested or even gang raped at refugee shelters.

"We have received reports of incidents of rape, gang rape, molestation and physical abuse of women and girls in the course of unsupervised rescue operations and while resident in temporary shelters," the rights group, Women and Media Collective, said in a statement.

It was unable to provide specific details but urged Sri Lankan authorities to step up protection for those who lived through the catastrophe, particularly the thousands of orphaned children.

With so many children losing their parents, aid groups and government officials are also concerned that they are being split among relatives more eager to get money promised for survivors than to care for them.

One UNICEF official in India said a man, who claimed to be an uncle of an orphaned boy, turned out to be a fraud after the child refused to go with him.

"Obviously, these orphans are precious to their relatives and even others not related, for the money relief offered by the government," said S. Vidyaakar, founder-director of Madras-based 'Udhavum Karangal' (Helping Hands), a voluntary institution.

Carol Bellamy, executive director of the UN Children's Fund, told a media conference in Colombo part of the focus of her organization's work in the country was to "ensure children are protected from exploitation".

"In tumult like this, when families are broken apart, when incomes are lost, when dignity and hope are in short supply, children are more vulnerable to abuses," Bellamy said.

While Thailand has rallied in response to the devastation wrought on its western shores by the walls of water on Dec. 26, a report said a 12-year-old Swedish boy injured in the chaos may have been kidnapped from a hospital.

Although not officially confirmed, the Times of London said Swedish and Thai police were cooperating to find the boy, Kristian Walker.

The report came a day after the Swedish branch of the non- governmental organization Save the Children, Raedda Barnen, warned that children who ended up alone after the disaster were potential targets for pedophiles.

"The experience from other catastrophes is that children are particularly vulnerable," Raedda Barnen managing director Charlotte Petri Gornitzka told a news conference.

Reports of looting and even body snatching have surfaced across the countries worst affected.

In Sri Lanka, reports said bodies of victims had been stolen from hospitals and "sold" to distraught relatives while fingers and ears of corpses had been chopped off to steal jewellery.

Meanwhile, some rescue workers -- or people posing as them -- in Thailand ransacked wrecked shops or stole from bodies.

Police on the resort island of Phuket received complaints that a man posing as a policeman pried open a jewellery store safe and stole items worth three million baht (US$76,920), The Nation newspaper said.

On the devastated resort island of Phi Phi a 200-strong team of rescue workers from a foundation left abruptly after a police search found 20 of them had items stolen from bodies, the paper said.

In countries not directly affected criminals have seen opportunities to exploit the chaos.

In East Timor, criminal gangs sent residents scattering from their house in the capital Dili by spreading rumors of an imminent tsunami in order to burgle the deserted homes, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said.

It was a similar scenario in coastal districts of Malaysia's Sabah state over the weekend, the New Straits Times reported.

And in Hong Kong emails falsely claiming to be from Oxfam and urging people to donate money for tsunami victims are doing the rounds, police and the relief agency said.

Fear that victims homes will be burgled has prevented Swedish authorities from publishing the names of citizens missing in tsunami-ravaged regions across the Indian Ocean.

"Unfortunately there are people ready in this country to burglarize homes, to destroy and steal things," said Prime Minister Goeran Persson.