REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The bodies of 13 Indonesian crew of the Oryong 501 ship will be repatriated from Busan, South Korea, to Indonesia on June 9, 2015, and will be officially received by Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi.
The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' (MOFA's) Head of Sub-Directorate Indonesians Protection and Law Assistance June Kuncoro Hadiningrat remarked during a press briefing here on Wednesday that the 13 bodies were identified on December 29, 2014.
The 13 Indonesian nationals of the ill-fated Oryong 501 ship were identified as six crew members from Central Java, three from West Java, two from Maluku, and one each from North Sulawesi and South Sulawesi.
"Besides the repatriation process, the Foreign Affairs Ministry also ensures that the victims' families will be given their due rights, including insurance and compensation," Hadiningrat noted.
According to the MOFA, each family of the Oryong 501's Indonesian ship crew will receive insurance worth Rp150 million and compensation, which varies between Rp15-20 million.
Hadiningrat stated that the families will also receive special compensation between US$ five thousand to US$15 thousand from Sajo Industries, the company that owned Oryong 501 vessel.
"The special compensation is a result of Minister Marsudi lobbying for compensation with the Sajo Industries when she visited Busan, South Korea, prior to the ROK-ASEAN's 40th anniversary summit," he stated.
As of now, 16 bodies of Indonesian nationals have been identified, but only 13 will be repatriated on Friday, January 9.
"The identification process of the three bodies was hampered by insufficient antemortem data during the matching process with the postmortem data, as the DVI team had only received a minor DNA sample from the victims' sisters," Hadiningrat explained.
Of the 60 crew aboard the Oryong 501 vessel that sank on December 1, 2014, in the Bering Sea, Russia, 35 were Indonesian nationals.
As of now, three Indonesian survivors: Teguh Haryono (43), Wanto (36), and Naryanto bin Wastara (25) have been repatriated on December 30, 2014, and 16 bodies have been evacuated, of which 13 will be returned to their families on January 9.