Latest news with #massgraves
Al Jazeera
15-07-2025
- General
- Al Jazeera
How were babies' mass graves discovered in church-run home in Ireland?
Digging has begun to uncover the remains of some 800 infants and young children buried in mass graves in Tuam, western Ireland. These children have been unidentified for at least 65 years, and it was only a decade ago that a local historian discovered the existence of the mass graves. Here is what we know about who they may be, how they were found, and how they died. What's happening now? The excavation, which began on Monday, is expected to last two years. It will be on the site of St Mary's, a 'mother and baby home' run by the nuns of the Catholic order of Bon Secours Sisters, which no longer exists. The excavation will be by Ireland's Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention (ODAIT), in collaboration with experts from the United Kingom, Canada, Colombia, Spain and the United States. Daniel MacSweeney, ODAIT director in Tuam, who is leading the excavation, told a recent news conference that the remains will be exhumed, analysed, identified where possible, and reburied. He added that the exhumation is 'incredibly complex' because some remains are mingled, archival records are lacking and it will be difficult to separate male from female remains if DNA cannot be recovered. What is a 'mother and baby home'? 'Mother and baby homes' were established across Ireland in the 20th century to house unmarried pregnant women who had no other source of support – family or otherwise – in a deeply conservative society. The vast majority of the 'homes' were operated by religious institutions, chiefly the Catholic Church. Shunned by society, the women sought help there, often suffering deep neglect and mistreatment, having their babies taken away for 'adoptions' they could not trace. St Mary's housed thousands of single mothers and their children between 1925 and 1961. It also housed hundreds of families of different configurations as well as unaccompanied children. How were the graves found? Local historian Catherine Corless discovered them nearly a decade ago. Corless grew up in Tuam and held vague memories of 'gaunt, desolate children being herded into the classroom at school, always a little later than the rest of us', she wrote in The Observer late last month. 'We were instructed by the nuns not to mix with those children, told that they carried disease. They did not continue into the higher classes and were soon forgotten,' Corless wrote. In 2012, Corless remembered the children when asked to contribute to a publication by the local historical society. She learned about the home after speaking to elderly residents of the city and began piecing information together, poring through maps and records. She found that there were no burial records for the many babies and children who died before the home closed down in 1961. While they had all been baptised, the Church denied knowledge of their death or burials. She also found that in 1970, two boys had found bones in an exposed part of the sewage tank and concluded there was enough evidence that the deceased babies and children were buried in a mass grave. Corless found records showing that as many as 796 babies and children died while they were at the home. Corless wrote that the Bon Secours sisters hired a PR company to deny the existence of a mass grave, claiming the bones were from the famine. However, Irish media eventually picked up her findings, prompting the Irish government to launch an investigation in 2015 into about 18 of the large mother and baby homes in Ireland. In 2016, a preliminary excavation revealed 'significant quantities of human remains' at Tuam. How did these babies die? State-issued death certificates list a range of causes of death, including tuberculosis, convulsions, anaemia, meningitis, measles, whooping cough and sometimes no reason. The first child to die was Patrick Derrane, who was five months old when he died from gastroenteritis in 1925. The last child to die was Mary Carty, also five months old when she died in 1960. The reason for her death is not specified. St Mary's was in a large 'workhouse' that was built in the mid-1800s, and it lacked central heating, heated water, and adequate sanitary facilities for nearly its entire existence. In the report by a commission established to investigate 'mother and baby homes' in Ireland, former inmates had mixed experiences, with some saying their time at St Mary's was fine, while others recounted a lack of food, rest, warmth, and even mothers denied access to their children. What has the church said? In 2014, then-Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary said: 'I am horrified and saddened to hear of the large number of deceased children involved and this points to a time of great suffering and pain for the little ones and their mothers. 'As the diocese did not have any involvement in the running of the home in Tuam, we do not have any material relating to it in our archives,' Neary said. He added that the records held by the Bon Secours Sisters were handed to Galway County Council and health authorities in 1961. In January of that year, the Bon Secours Sisters issued an apology signed by Sister Eileen O'Connor, which included: 'We did not live up to our Christianity when running the Home. 'We acknowledge in particular that infants and children who died at the Home were buried in a disrespectful and unacceptable way. For all that, we are deeply sorry.' Catholic Archbishop Eamon Martin acknowledged that the Catholic Church was part of a culture that stigmatised people. 'For that, and for the long-lasting hurt and emotional distress that has resulted, I unreservedly apologise to the survivors and to all those who are personally impacted,' he said in 2021. In 2021, the Irish government released a 3,000-page report based on the findings from their investigation which was launched in 2015. After this, all institutions formally apologised and pledged to excavate the site at Tuam. In January of that year, the Bon Secours Sisters issued an apology statement. 'We did not live up to our Christianity when running the Home,' the statement wrote. The statement, signed off by Sister Eileen O'Connor acknowledged that the sisters did not uphold the inherent dignity of the women and children who came to the Home. Catholic Archbishop Eamon Martin also apologised, acknowledging that the Catholic Church was part of a culture where people were stigmatised or judged. 'For that, and for the long-lasting hurt and emotional distress that has resulted, I unreservedly apologise to the survivors and to all those who are personally impacted by the realities it uncovers,' Marin said in a statement in 2021. What has the Irish government said? Also in January of 2021, Irish Prime Minister (or Taoiseach) Micheal Martin apologised in parliament on behalf of the state. In 2021, the Irish government released the 3,000-page commission report after six years of investigation, resulting in formal apologies and pledges to excavate the site at Tuam. In 2022, a law was passed allowing the remains to be exhumed and tested. What have family members of inmates said? 'These children were denied every human right in their lifetime as were their mothers,' Anna Corrigan, whose two siblings may have been buried at Tuam, told reporters this month. 'And they were denied dignity and respect in death.' Many children born in the homes survived but were taken to orphanages in other places or put up for adoption by the nuns. The mothers and families of these children did not know, and in many cases could not find out, what happened to their babies. Has this only happened in Ireland? Children in state or religious care in other parts of the world have also been abused in the past. In New Zealand, the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care found in 2024 that approximately one in three individuals in state or religious care between 1950 and 2019 experienced abuse. During this period, about 200,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults were subjected to physical and sexual abuse, which particularly targeted Indigenous Maori and Pacific Islanders. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada found that the residential school system had amounted to cultural genocide. The system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous children who were forcefully taken from their families for 'reprogramming'. They ran from 1879 to 1997 under the Catholic, Anglican and United Churches.
BBC News
15-07-2025
- General
- BBC News
The Interview Catherine Corless, Irish historian: I'm going to be a voice for these children
I'm going to be a voice for these children Chris Page, the BBC's Ireland correspondent speaks to the Irish historian Catherine Corless, who has changed history in her own country. When she began to research a long-closed mother and baby home near where she lived, she encountered local resistance. But her dogged investigation led to the discovery that hundreds of babies and young children were buried in mass, unmarked graves inside a disused sewage tank at the site in Tuam, Ireland. Her work led to the discovery of the scandal of Ireland's historical mother and baby institutions, which housed unmarried mothers and their babies at a time when they were ostracized by Irish society and often their families too. An inquiry launched by the Irish government into the network of homes concluded about nine thousand children died in the eighteen homes investigated. The revelation led to apologies from the Catholic Church in Ireland, the Irish Government, the council which owned the home in Tuam and the religious order which ran the home. The order has also contributed millions of dollars to a compensation scheme, and to the excavation now underway in Tuam. Thank you to Chris Page and Chrissie McGlinchey from the BBC's Ireland bureau for their help in making this programme. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service, Mondays and Wednesdays at 0700 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out twice a week on BBC Sounds, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Presenter: Chris Page Producers: Lucy Sheppard and Chrissie McGlinchey Editor: Nick Holland Get in touch with us on email TheInterview@ and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media. (Image: Catherine Corless. Credit: PA)
Al Jazeera
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Al Jazeera
Srebrenica genocide: A woman's search for her missing brother in Bosnia
Sifa Suljic returns to Bosnia to look for the remains of her brother who went missing during the Srebrenica genocide. Sifa Suljic returns to Bosnia and Herzegovina to face the past she was forced to flee. She grew up in Srebrenica but fled to Spain with her baby daughter during the Bosnian War. The men in her family were killed in the Srebrenica genocide. Decades later, all their remains have been found in mass graves, except for her elder brother. With the last videotape of her family, which was filmed before the men went missing, Sifa sets out to uncover the truth about what happened to her brother. As she revisits the places and people of her childhood, she asks how neighbours turned on each other and whether history could repeat itself. Srebrenica: The Last Tape is a documentary film by Albert Sole.
CTV News
08-07-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Srebrenica women bury loved ones but remain haunted by memories of 1995 massacre
Participants in the "March of Peace" march in memory of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in Nezuk, Bosnia, Tuesday, July 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut) SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Three decades after their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons were killed in the bloodiest episode of the Bosnian war, women who survived the Srebrenica massacre find some solace in having been able to unearth their loved ones from far-away mass graves and bury them individually at the town's memorial cemetery. The women say that living near the graves reminds them not only of the tragedy but of their love and perseverance in seeking justice for the men they lost. 'I found peace here, in the proximity of my loved ones,' said Fadila Efendic, 74, who returned to her family home in 2002, seven years after being driven away from Srebrenica and witnessing her husband and son being taken away to be killed. The Srebrenica killings were the crescendo of Bosnia's 1992-95 war, which came after the breakup of Yugoslavia unleashed nationalist passions and territorial ambitions that set Bosnian Serbs against the country's two other main ethnic populations — Croats and Bosniaks. On July 11, 1995, Serbs overran Srebrenica, at the time a U.N.-protected safe area. They separated at least 8,000 Bosniak men and boys from their wives, mothers and sisters and slaughtered them. Those who tried to escape were chased through the woods and over the mountains around town. Bosniak women and children were packed onto buses and expelled. The executioners tried to erase the evidence of their crime, plowing the bodies into hastily dug mass graves and scattering them among other burial sites. Mothers have sought the remains of loved ones for years As soon as the war was over, Efendic and other women like her vowed to find their loved ones, bring them back and give them a proper burial. 'At home, often, especially at dusk, I imagine that they are still around, that they went out to go to work and that they will come back,' Efendic said, adding: 'That idea, that they will return, that I am near them, is what keeps me going.' To date, almost 90% of those reported missing since the Srebrenica massacre have been accounted for through their remains exhumed from hundreds of mass graves scattered around the eastern town. Body parts are still being found in death pits around Srebrenica and identified through painstaking DNA analysis. So far, the remains of more than 6,700 people – including Efendic's husband and son - have been found in several different mass graves and reburied at the memorial cemetery inaugurated in Srebrenica in 2003 at the relentless insistence of the women. 'We wrote history in white marble headstones and that is our success,' said Kada Hotic, who lost her husband, son and 56 other male relatives in the massacre. 'Despite the fact that our hearts shiver when we speak about our sons, our husbands, our brothers, our people, our town, we refused to let (what happened to) them be forgotten.' The Srebrenica carnage has been declared a genocide by two U.N. courts. Dozens of Srebrenica women testified before the U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, helping put behind bars close to 50 Bosnian Serb wartime officials, collectively sentenced to over 700 years in prison. The loss that never goes away After decades of fighting to keep the truth about Srebrenica alive, the women now spend their days looking at scarce mementos of their former lives, imagining the world that could have been. Sehida Abdurahmanovic, who lost dozens of male relatives in the massacre, including her husband and her brother, often stares at a few family photos, two handwritten notes from her spouse and some personal documents she managed to take with her in 1995. 'I put these on the table to refresh my memories, to bring back to life what I used to have,' she said. 'Since 1995, we have been struggling with what we survived and we can never, not even for a single day, be truly relaxed.' Suhra Malic, 90, who lost two sons and 30 other male relatives, is also haunted by the memories. 'It is not a small feat to give birth to children, to raise them, see them get married and build them a house of their own and then, just as they move out and start a life of independence, you lose them, they are gone and there is nothing you can do about it,' Malic said. Summers in Srebrenica are difficult, especially as July 11, the anniversary of the day the killing began in 1995, approaches. In her own words, Mejra Djogaz 'used to be a happy mother' to three sons, and now, 'I look around myself and I am all alone, I have no one.' 'Not a single night or day goes by that I do not wake up at two or three after midnight and start thinking about how they died,' she said. Aisa Omerovic agrees. Her husband, two sons and 42 other male relatives were killed in the massacre. Alone at home, she said she often hears the footsteps of her children and imagines them walking into the room. 'I wait for the door to open; I know that it won't open, but still, I wait.' Eldar Emric, The Associated Press
Russia Today
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Mass graves uncovered in war-torn African state
At least 117 mass graves have been discovered across the Sudanese capital Khartoum, amid escalating civil conflict, local news agency Sudan Tribune reported on Saturday. A state government official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said that the bodies were buried in improvised locations, including homes and open streets, because conventional cemeteries are now overrun or inaccessible due to the fighting. The graves vary significantly in size, with some containing only a few bodies and others reportedly holding dozens. Earlier this year, authorities began the process of exhuming bodies from mass graves in parts of Omdurman, the second-largest city of the country. In May, 465 bodies of civilians were also discovered in the Al-Salihah area of Omdurman. Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by fierce fighting between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), with both factions vying for control amid a stalled transition to civilian rule. According to Reuters, citing the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than four million people have fled Sudan since the outbreak of the war. Estimates of fatalities vary, though research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine suggests that over 61,000 people were killed in the state of Khartoum alone during the first 14 months of the conflict. Local media have reported a death toll as high as 130,000. In March, the commander of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, declared that the country's two-year civil war was far from over, despite the national army regaining control of major infrastructure in the capital.
