Body find sparks fear among non-nationals

THE DISCOVERY of a headless corpse wrapped in black plastic and dumped under a bridge in Kilkenny on Friday last has sparked fear of further attacks among non-nationals, an administrator working with refugees said.

Gardaí fear it could take several more days to identify the remains of the African woman who was possibly in her 20s or 30s.

Non-national women are afraid to even go to the shops, said the Rev John Rochford, the administrator to the South East refugee information centre at Bolton House in Waterford.

“The non-national community is a very nomadic one and families travel to various parts of the country at weekends. But this weekend, husbands are afraid to leave their wives and are worried about something as minor as a trip to the shops,” he said.

He said that hundreds of non-nationals are missing up and down the country but that the community is slow to report matters to the gardaí.

“They don’t get the gardaí involved because of the constant fear of deportation. A non-national will never report an assault or even a rape. As a community, we now need to take more stock of who is living among us and how they are being treated,” he said.

Meanwhile, gardaí have stepped up their investigation but are not hopeful of an early lead. “We are treating this matter as a murder,” said investigating superintendent Michael Devine of Clonmel garda station. “We are continuing our inquiries around the scene and are trawling through missing persons records.

“We can confirm that the victim is a non-national and that no positive source of death has been discovered. But what we do know is that she died in very violent circumstances.

“Her body may well have been there a few weeks, which makes our investigation even more difficult. Our efforts are very much focusing on trying to identify the remains,” he said.

Gardaí declined to speculate if the remains are those of missing mother-of-two, Gina Onyemachi. But they have been in contact with her family about the find. The missing woman, who is in her late 20s, was reported missing by her husband a fortnight ago.

But it is believed that as many as four or five other missing persons’ files are also being probed, as part of the intensive investigation involving officers from south Kilkenny, Carrick-on-Suir and Clonmel, as well as the garda national technical bureau.