THE human remains of hundreds of Southampton crew members on Titanic, together with the ill-fated liner’s wreckage, have been safeguarded under the protection of the United Nations (UN), the Daily Echo can reveal.

In only the third such move to be undertaken by the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), countries around the world have agreed to impose new, strict laws on the area in and around the 100-year-old wreck on the Atlantic seabed.

The Titanic is considered so important that UNESCO has described it as “the Stonehenge of the deep”.

There are still many families living in Southampton whose direct ancestors were among the hundreds of local seafarers drowned when Titanic sank, and whose bodies were never recovered.

Now, under international law, measures have been introduced to “protect the wreck and ensure the human remains are treated with dignity’‘.

Ever since the wreck has been discovered there has been fierce controversy over whether Titanic should be respected as the grave of more than 1,500 passengers and crew who died after the liner hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton in April, 1912.

Until now, the wreck was not eligible for protection under UNESCO’s Con-vention on the Protection of Under-water Cultural Heritage, which applies only to wreckage that has remained submerged for at least 100 years.

As 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking, the ship’s wreckage will now come under the cover of the UNESCO convention, which seeks to safeguard wrecks and cultural relics underwater.

The news has come too late for the last survivor of Titanic, Milvina Dean, from Woodlands, near Southampton, who died in May, 2009 aged 97. She staunchly believed, as it is the last resting place of her father, it should be protected.

UNESCO’s director-general, Irina Bokova, said: “The sinking of Titanic is anchored in the memory of humanity and is historically unique, like the Stonehenge of the deep, so I am pleased that this site can now be protected by the UNESCO convention.”

The director-general called on diving expeditions not to dump equipment or place commemorative plaques on the Titanic site.

Remnants of Titanic lie at a depth of 4,000 metres off the coast of Newfoundland, and no single nation can claim the site because it is in international waters. However, from now on nations party to the UNESCO convention can outlaw the “destruction, pillage, sale and dispersion of objects found at the site.’‘ The convention provides a system of cooperation between states “to prevent exploration deemed unscientific or unethical”.

Under the convention, UNESCO has the authority to seize any illicitly recovered artefacts and close ports to all vessels undertaking exploration, undertaken against the principles of the treaty.