Police unable to identify 30pc of traffic victims, says official
July 26 - August 1, 2010
POLICE are unable to identify about 30 percent of all people killed in road traffic accidents in Yangon Division, a senior official said last week.
Most of the accidents that involve unidentifiable victims occur in rural areas and on highway roads and the victims are usually migrant workers, said Police Lieutenant Kyaw Tun Win, from the Department of Wireless and Traffic Police Force in Yangon Division.
He said the figure had risen since Cyclone Nargis because there had been an influx of migrant workers to Yangon from the Ayeyarwady delta.
“Many of these people killed in road accident are migrant workers from rural areas – they come and work in Yangon for many reasons. They often don’t have a fixed address, very few people know their names and address and they have few friends,” Pol Lt Kyaw Tun Win said.
“They also have no documentation to show who they are. So if they are in a road accident, no one knows who they are or where they live and that means we can’t inform their family. It is even worse when we don’t know who is driving the other vehicle, such as in a hit-and-run case,” he said.
He said it is important that families come forward and contact the traffic police force if they don’t hear from a family member for a significant period of time.
In cases where they can’t identify the deceased, the traffic police force sends a letter with a photo to police stations across the country. The station then shows the file to anybody who comes forward to notify them of a missing relative.
In Yangon, they also send a fingerprint to the Criminal Investigation Department in Insein township and attempt to match it with other fingerprints on file.
“CID has fingerprints of people from across the whole country because we have to give an address and fingerprint when applying for a National Registration Card (NRC). They can check the print of the deceased and try and match it with one on file,” he said. “As a matter of course they also contact police stations in Ayeyarwady Division because most of the unidentified victims are migrant workers from the delta area.”
In 2009, 206 people were killed and 1619 injured in 864 road accidents. In the first six months of 2010, 348 accidents had been reported resulting in 82 deaths and 565 people being injured.
The department can be contacted on (01) 298-651, 291-284 or 291-285. – Translated by Thiri Min Htun
