A month after the worst bus accident in Panama’s history, the authorities of that country handed over the remains of the Cuban victims of the accident to relatives.
The representative of the municipality of Gualaca, María Eugenia Batista, reported this Thursday that the remains of Cuban immigrants who lost their lives in the accident were reported on February 15 in this area of the province of Chiriquí, on the border with Costa Rica.
The officer explained 21 bodies were delivered of “victims of Cuban, Colombian, Venezuelan, Ecuadorian and Panamanian nationality”.
batiste did not specify the number of Cuban casualties in the incidenthappened when a bus carrying 64 immigrants from the Darien jungle to a camp in Chiriquí went off the road and plunged into a ravine.
As of last Friday, the Guacala Regional Prosecutor’s Office, Chiriquí, began handing over the remains to relatives after a long recognition process. Belongings and funds secured at the scene of the accident were also handed over to them and they received psychological care, the local representative said.
The accident killed 37 immigrants and two Panamanians, including the bus driver; a total of 66 people were traveling in the vehicle.
There are still 18 bodies in the David County Judiciary Mortuary, he said.
For the handover of the corpses, the relatives must hand in the payment receipt to a funeral home for cremation.
Some embassies have covered the cost of the cremation, others with a small part of that amount, and some diplomatic offices have only supported the procedures, he stressed. The assistance that the Cuban regime has given to its affected citizens is unknown.
This Friday, March 17th, the Panamanian government will solemn burial ceremony of the victims of this incident in David District after the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Science (IMELCF) officially closed its investigation into the incident.
In late February, Panama reported that identifying the bodies could take time due to the condition in which the victims were found, and asked the governments involved to help provide genetic material to speed up the comparison.
The two Panamanian drivers were traveling on the bus, as were 22 Ecuadorian migrants, 16 Haitians, 11 Venezuelans, six Brazilians, five Colombians, four Africans – two from Cameroon, one from Eritrea and one from Nigeria – and two cubansapparently women.
This is the worst reported bus accident in the country’s history.