By Syann Thompson

Tribune Staff Reporter

sthompson@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH Minister Dr Duane Sands said a multi-ministerial decision will have to be made to confirm that over 200 people have died due to Hurricane Dorian.

Giving an update on the unidentified victims from the monster storm, Dr Sands told The Tribune that the relevant authorities will have to make a decision to confirm that more than 200 people lost their lives during Hurricane Dorian.

“At some point, the government of The Bahamas will have to declare that over 200 people have died in Hurricane Dorian but I cannot officially say that as that is a multi-ministerial decision. We have to do our due diligence and meet to decide. We want to move all of the outstanding matters to an agreed consensus or conclusion. We want to bring some closure. Again, we have not walked this road before,” said Dr Sands.

The official death toll from the storm stands at 70, with 60 victims from Abaco and 10 from Grand Bahama, according to a November 29, 2019 press release from the National Emergency Management Agency. At last report, officials said nearly 300 people were reported as missing. 

A multi-agency meeting with the Ministries of Health, Legal Affairs, National Security, the Office of the Attorney General and relevant agencies was scheduled on January 9 but is postponed until next week.

“The outstanding issues would be to ensure that we have done everything that we could possibly do in terms of identification,” Dr Sands said.

“You would have heard me say that we would invite the International Red Cross to provide a safe space for persons who may not be willing to come forward to identify (loved ones). And so that invitation and that request has already been made, the logistics of how that happens is very important.

“Then it’s the whole issue of how long we are going to keep remains in refrigerated coolers particularly in Abaco. We need to identify a place for interment. We need to agree on a type of grid that would be set up and how we would reference remains.”

In mass tragedies, the identification process can be protracted; for instance victims are still being identified some 18 years after the September 11 attacks on New York.

In The Bahamas, the law states it takes seven years to declare a missing person dead, something Dr Sands says would have to be modified in light of the circumstances.

“The Attorney General would have said, I would have said, that we are going to consider an abridged or shortened time different than the seven years and there are examples of countries that have shortened the timeline when people are presumed to be dead from a natural disaster, were declared dead.

“You’ve got to ensure that whatever decision is made, that you have consulted adequately that you did not ignore important considerations and so it is very important. There are legal requirements that have to be met. So, at the multi-ministerial meeting, we want to bring this thing to some kind of closure on many different levels.”

Roughly over 50 people remain unidentified in Abaco and all the remains in Grand Bahama have been identified and turned over to the families, according to Dr Sands.

In reference to unidentified people in Abaco, the minister said a system must be in place if they have to buried before they are identified.

He said: “Bear in mind that we are in uncharted waters locally so if you were to look at the last mass casualty in Abaco when we had the capsized boat (in early 2019) - all of those victims were buried with the support of the Haitian Embassy.

“This is a different scenario because in that instance we knew that they were Haitian migrants. In this instance we don’t know who all of these people are and so being sure to maximise the dignity afforded these human souls and adhering to the law and not burning any bridges in terms of subsequent opportunities to identify persons at a later date if a DNA match is confirmed.”