Bodies Of Colombia Plane Crash Victims Flown Home

The bodies of the 71 victims killed in a plane crash in Colombia that wiped out a Brazilian football team returned home Friday, as mourners prepared a massive funeral.

Along the road to the airport, hundreds of people brandished flowers, white balloons and Colombian flags to pay a final farewell to the victims of Monday’s tragedy.

The remains of the first victim, Paraguayan crew member Gustavo Encina, were handed over to his family early Friday in a coffin draped in his country’s flag.

The other victims — 64 Brazilians, five Bolivians and a Venezuelan — were flown home on a series of flights throughout the day.

“What we want now more than anything else is to go home, to take our friends and brothers home. The wait is the worst,” said Roberto Di Marche, a cousin of football team Chapecoense Real’s late director Nilson Folle Junior.

In the club’s hometown, the southern Brazilian city of Chapeco, more than 100,000 people — about half the city’s population — are expected to attend a memorial service Saturday in honor of the team, whose fairytale season was tragically cut short.

FIFA chief Gianni Infantino canceled a trip to Australia to attend the funeral.

Officials said Brazilian President Michel Temer would likely travel to Chapeco as well.

“The #Chapecoense will remain in our memory for their perseverance and tenacity. I reiterate my deepest solidarity with relatives of the victims,” Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos wrote on Twitter as the last plane departed.

The bodies will be carried during a funeral procession through the city, ending with a ceremony at the team’s stadium.

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Flesh-Eating Bug On The Rise In Syria Caused By ISIS Dumping Bodies In The Street

WAR-ravaged Syria has a new enemy – a deadly flesh-eating bug caused by ISIS dumping bodies in the street.

The bug, known as Leishmaniasis, is caused by protozoan parasites.

It is usually carried by flies but experts warn that increase in rotting flesh in the street has triggered a dramatic rise.

Records suggest that 16 months ago around 500 people were affected by the disease, but that is now believed to have soared.

Dilqash Isa, head of the Kurdish Red Crescent humanitarian organisation , said: ‘As a result of abominable acts by ISIS that included the killing of innocent people and dumping their corpses in streets, this is the leading factor behind the rapid spread of Leishmanisis disease.’

The World Health Organization has warned that Syria’s health system has collapsed under five years of war, the Metro reports.

‘We did not have knowledge about this deadly disease before,’ a Syrian Kurdish fighter told news agencies. ‘We have been fighting on the battlefield for almost four years and this disease basically generated from embattled areas of Tal Hamis, Hon and Qosa,’

Credit: AP

Agencies Evacuate Bodies From Bombed Borno Market

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and International Community of Red Cross (ICC) in Borno State have reported evacuating some 17 corpses from a meat market in Maiduguri following the explosion that hit the site on Tuesday.

According to spokesman of the NEMA in the Northeast zone, Abdul Kadir Ibrahim, “Our men have evacuated not less than 17 the dead corpses in the explosion.”

Ibrahim was not able to give accurate figure of those that injured in the explosion as officials from the agency with other humanitarian agencies were still involved in taking the injured to Umaru Shehu General Hospital in Maiduguri.

The spokesman of the ICRC in the Borno State, Mallam Umar Sadiq, however confirmed that 24 people injured in the explosion were rushed to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospitals and State Specialists Hospital.

Kasuwan Shanu is the major market for the sales of livestock in Maiduguri, also accommodating an abattoir. Many residents of the largely-impoverished town patronise the market.

About 50 people were reported killed in the attack that bore the hallmarks of Islamist Boko Haram militants.

Credit: CAJ News

S.Africa to Repatriate Bodies of Nationals Killed in Synagogue Collapse

The South African government said Tuesday that it was ready to repatriate on the weekend the bodies of 81 of its nationals killed in a September church building collapse in Nigerian economic capital Lagos.

 “We have 100 percent fool-proof plan that should we get a green light, we should be able to dispatch two chartered flights to Lagos so that Saturday evening we can be able to transport the remains to South Africa,” Jeff Radebe, a minister in the presidency told journalists.

Radebe, who is leading a powerful South African delegation to Nigeria over the repatriation of the bodies, said he met President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja on Monday over the issue.

Radebe, the special envoy of President Jacob Zuma, said he discussed with the Nigerian leader “the need for the speeding up of the process of repatriating 81 South Africans who perished in the tragic event” of September 12 in Lagos.

A total of 116 people were killed when a guesthouse at the Lagos megachurch of one of Nigeria’s most popular preachers, TB Joshua, collapsed.

Credit: Yahoo News