Re: Haiti Earthquake - US death toll - 46 confirmed , 24 unconfirmed as of 01/22/2010
Re: Haiti Earthquake - US death toll - 46 confirmed , 24 unconfirmed as of 01/22/2010
Philip J. Crowley
Assistant Secretary
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC
January 22, 2010
Excerpt:
"MR. CROWLEY: As of 5 o?clock this morning, just under 9,300 ? 9,288, to be exact ? Americans and family members have departed Haiti. And we are doing them by --
QUESTION: What does Americans and family members mean?
MR. CROWLEY: In some cases, you have a family that might have one parent and child who is an American citizen, a parent or child who are Haitian citizens. As we do at any consulate or any embassy, we work through and evaluate on a case-by-case basis visas, and have granted visas so that we can, to the extent possible, keep families together.
We have opened files on or we have accounted for roughly 11,000 Americans at this point.
We have 46 confirmed American fatalities, one U.S. Government officer, as you know, and 45 private. At this point, we estimate that there perhaps are 24 other cases, unconfirmed fatalities that we are still investigating.
QUESTION: Including those three Embassy employees that were suggested earlier in the week?
MR. CROWLEY: Well, we still have ? we have four U.S. Government individuals who aren?t accounted for at this point.
QUESTION: Four?
MR. CROWLEY: Four.
QUESTION: And that?s included in those 24?
MR. CROWLEY: I don?t think so. They?re unaccounted for. But I think ? in other words, I think there are 24 cases where we are aware that there?s been a death, and we are trying to make sure to kind of match up identity and citizenship.
QUESTION: How many ? you said you have resolved 11,000 cases. How many are unresolved?
MR. CROWLEY: That?s a good question. Maybe we?ll try to find out what?s the broad universe before we end the briefing.
QUESTION: Okay. Can you ?
MR. CROWLEY: I think we still are running at about 4- to 5,000 that are kind of still looking at ? you know, evaluating information.
QUESTION: Okay. About these fatalities, a couple of things: First of all, if you have 4- to 5-, 6.000 ? and I know that doesn?t mean that you ? that that means 4- to 5-, 6,000 --
MR. CROWLEY: Thank you. Right.
QUESTION: -- Americans are ? were killed. At some point, what do you ? you know, you have 20 ? you have 45 that ? or 24 more that are presumed dead, but presumably at least some of those 4,500 possibly could be, you know, also deceased.
MR. CROWLEY: Hang on a second. Where did you get the 4,500? I said 4- to 5,000, so you?re ?
QUESTION: No, you said you have ? you said that ? we were talking about the unresolved cases and you said --
MR. CROWLEY: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- you still have 4- to 5,000 unresolved cases --
MR. CROWLEY: Correct.
QUESTION: -- I?m saying. So presumably, some of those people might have also died even if you haven?t been ?
MR. CROWLEY: I think we don?t doubt tragically that ?
QUESTION: No, I know.
MR. CROWLEY: -- at this point we are aware, we believe, of up to 70 Americans who have died in the earthquake ? that that number is going to go up. And once we are in the recovery phase and begin to deal with the rubble on the ground, no ?
QUESTION: Probably won?t even ?
MR. CROWLEY: -- no doubt that we?re going to find more bodies than have already been discovered in Haiti and a number of those will be Americans.
QUESTION: I guess we can ? I mean, I don?t know what is ? once you have the recovery phase, it doesn?t sound like there is as much attention to specific bodies, and they?re just taking up the rubble and people are just being dumped into mass graves and not being identified.
MR. CROWLEY: I ? Elise, I wouldn?t characterize it that way.
QUESTION: Well, that isn?t ?
MR. CROWLEY: Clearly, in the recovery phase we are ? we will be looking to recover remains. That is ? will be important as we go through Port-au-Prince. And that is ? that will be the next phase and it will be something that we will do with ? in a broader scale and with urgency and sensitivity.
I mean, this is the next stage in terms of helping Haiti rebuild, but the recovery phase means, among other things, that we will change our ? we?ll change our methodologies. But obviously, we think this is important to families in Haiti, families in the United States, and families in other countries that they ultimately understand and know, to the extent that we can, what happened to their loved ones.
QUESTION: Can you walk us through, please, these confirmed fatalities ? how you go about confirming an American fatality, and what ? once you confirm them, do you only confirm them once you actually have found their remains? And what happens to their remains? Are you sending them home to the United States? Are you ? what are you doing with them?
MR. CROWLEY: Well, it?s very, very difficult to make a general statement. I mean, in terms of confirmation that an American has died overseas, we seek ? obviously, we need to be aware that there is a body, and we take every effort to match that to identity papers, including a passport, that would allow us to verify citizenship.
As to ? we will obviously work with families of those who are deceased. In some cases, they have family members who are in Haiti, and in some cases, we have helped to facilitate the return of remains. In some cases, families have gone ahead and brought remains back to the United States through private efforts. So it is a combination of those. But I think we recognize that part of our responsibility here is to try to help and determine as best we can the disposition of Americans who are in Port-au-Prince, and we will continue to do that.
QUESTION: Just specifically on kind of notification of next of kin, have you notified the next of kin of all of these Americans? And just to ?
MR. CROWLEY: If we have that confirmation, then we reach out to families, and/or we could reach out to those who have contacted us and then as to the ? I would say probably in some cases, the United States Government has directly notified people that their loved ones have been lost in Haiti. In other cases, we have notified family or friends and they have in turn notified next of kin. So again, we have been and continue to be in contact with anyone who has asked us for assistance with determining what has happened to people that we have reason to believe were in Port-au-Prince when the earthquake struck.
Read more at:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2010/01/135694.htm