Quick burials spark anger among families

Apriadi Gunawan and Dedy Ardiansyah, The Jakarta Post, Medan

Deep sorrow engulfed Bungaran Simaremare as he put a Bible and ulos (a traditional Batak cloth worn covering the shoulder) on the coffin of his son Welman Chansisko Simaremare.

He had to accept Welman being buried in a mass grave on Wednesday along with 33 other victims of a Mandala Airlines plane crash in Medan, North Sumatra, even though his family had managed to identify his body.

Bungaran was forced to allow his 33-year old son to be buried in the mass grave because the bodies of Welman's wife Desy Togatorop, 31, and his brother-in-law Maramos had still not been identified three days after Monday's tragedy that killed at least 149 people.

"Let him be buried in a mass grave here. Maybe he wanted to be with his wife. We tried hard to find his wife, but to no avail," Bungaran told The Jakarta Post after the mass burial.

Welman's younger sister, Fordes Niaty Simaremare, 28, said her extended family had agreed to allow the couple to be buried in a mass grave, should the body of one of them not be identified.

"We believe that they wanted to always be together," Fordes added.

The corpse of Welmar was identified by his brother, who just arrived from Lampung, in the last minutes before being brought to the mass grave along with 33 other bodies.

"We thank God that we were able to recognize his body. That's a miracle for us," said Fordes.

As many as 34 charred bodies of victims killed in the crash -- all unidentified, except for Welman -- were buried in a field close to Medan's airport, where a Mandala Airlines Boeing 737-200 slammed into a densely populated residential area, creating a path of destruction as it plowed into houses, cars, and pedestrians.

The mass burial took place next to the mass grave of the unidentified victims of a Garuda Indonesia Airbus A-300 that crashed in a mountainous area near Medan in September 1997, killing all 234 people on board.

Tuesday's funeral, led by Medan Mayor Abdillah at around 1:30 p.m., was witnessed by hundreds of people including families and relatives of the victims.

North Sumatra provincial administration spokesman Eddy Sofyan said the decision for the mass burial was made after a forensic team working around the clock could not identify them.

"We have to bury the unidentified charred bodies today. We can't wait any longer," Sofyan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, referring to Islamic customs that require quick burials of the dead.

However, several families of crash victims were upset about the fast process of identification, which left many of the charred remains unrecognized.

Pesta Christina, Welman's elder sister, said the time for the identification process should have been extended for one more day to assist families to find the bodies of their unidentified relatives.

"We believe that if an additional day was given for identification, we would have found Welman's wife," Christina added.

The three-day identification process also caused a dispute between two families, who fought over a burnt corpse.

The forensic team temporarily handed over the disputed body to the Sitanggang family after they claimed that it was a family member named Rohida Lumbanraja.

However, the forensic team will be conducting DNA tests on the corpses in a bid to ascertain identity.

All 34 bodies were placed in coffins and loaded onto military trucks for burial 100 meters from the Medan airport runway.

Mourners threw flowers into the mass grave. Bulldozers then heaped mounds of dirt over the coffins.

The coffins were each given numbers, like the coffin of Welman that was numbered 34 P.

The numbering of coffins was to enable possible identification of the corpses sometime in the future if their families wanted to move them to other graves, said identification team chief Amri Amir.

He added that the possibility was still open that the buried bodies could be identified.

Amir said the forensic team had taken DNA samples from all 34 bodies before they were buried.

"The results of the DNA tests are being examined in Jakarta and could be known in a month at the latest. If the results are consistent with claims by the families of victims, they will be allowed to resume the grave and move the bodies of their family members," he added.