ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka: Monday, March 21, 2005, 12:46 GMT,
I am writing you to request assistance to match two photographs of a tsunami-affected missing child. We have been requested by a father of a child who has gone missing in the tsunami disaster that affected Sri Lanka on the 26th December, 2004.
Mr. Lal has lost his wife and child in the disaster. His wife's body was found and his only child has been missing since the disaster. He has made a request to us to match one photograph of his 1½ year old son with a photograph that appeared in the media.
The photo appeared in the media was taken by a press photographer and it shows a man holding an injured child that was found close to Mr. Lal's house. The father strongly believes it is his son as the facial features, body complexion and body size of the child are very similar to his son.
The person who held the child has been contacted and the father has found out that the child was taken to a hospital in the same area immediately after the photograph was taken. Unfortunately, there was no trace of the child since then.
The father believes that the child was perhaps mistakenly taken by another person. In search of the child, he would like to confirm that the child that appeared in the newspaper was the same child. We have received the two photographs from him and we do not have software that would carry out the matching in our university.
We are seeking a company that specialises in software that would carry out a match. Therefore, we would like to request your assistance in matching the two photographs.
We would greatly appreciate if you could assist us in this charitable endeavour.
Sincerely,
Prof V.K. Samaranayake University of Colombo School of Computing 35, Reid Avenue Colombo 7 Sri Lanka
vks@ucsc.cmb.ac.lk
Mr. Lal has lost his wife and child in the disaster. His wife's body was found and his only child has been missing since the disaster. He has made a request to us to match one photograph of his 1½ year old son with a photograph that appeared in the media.
The photo appeared in the media was taken by a press photographer and it shows a man holding an injured child that was found close to Mr. Lal's house. The father strongly believes it is his son as the facial features, body complexion and body size of the child are very similar to his son.
The person who held the child has been contacted and the father has found out that the child was taken to a hospital in the same area immediately after the photograph was taken. Unfortunately, there was no trace of the child since then.
The father believes that the child was perhaps mistakenly taken by another person. In search of the child, he would like to confirm that the child that appeared in the newspaper was the same child. We have received the two photographs from him and we do not have software that would carry out the matching in our university.
We are seeking a company that specialises in software that would carry out a match. Therefore, we would like to request your assistance in matching the two photographs.
We would greatly appreciate if you could assist us in this charitable endeavour.
Sincerely,
Prof V.K. Samaranayake University of Colombo School of Computing 35, Reid Avenue Colombo 7 Sri Lanka
vks@ucsc.cmb.ac.lk
