'Every effort being made to identify MV Barima victims with utmost dignity' – PM Phillips

What this source establishes

A government release of 28 July that this archive did not hold, and which matters for two reasons. It gives the state's own figures on that date — 73 recovered, 68 identified, five awaiting identification, 30 unaccounted for, 76 survivors — so the 73 that the Department of Public Information itself abandoned without explanation on 30 July was its own published figure two days earlier. And it confirms the operational picture at that point: 18 assets, three aircraft and 15 vessels, from Waini Point to Adventure. Like every other state statement here it reports the recovered and the unaccounted for and never adds them together.

Key claims

• Prime Minister Mark Phillips, quoted: "Every effort continues to be made to complete the identification process with the utmost care and dignity."
• Figures given by the state on 28 July: **73 bodies recovered; 68 positively identified and released to families; 5 awaiting identification; 30 unaccounted for; 76 survivors from 77 rescued, one having died after rescue.**
• **This is a government release dated 28 July giving 73**, which bears on the divergence recorded on this site: the state's own information service gave 72 on 30 July, two days later, with no announcement of a revision.
• Operations: 18 assets deployed, three aircraft and 15 vessels, covering an area from Waini Point to Adventure. The Prime Minister notes no significant developments since the previous Friday.
• As with every other government statement in this corpus, the release reports bodies recovered and persons unaccounted for and **never the sum of the two.**

This page is a research summary prepared for comment and review. It is not the article. Copyright in the original remains with Department of Public Information; the full text is held only in the private research corpus from which this archive was compiled. Follow the link above to read it at the source.