ICMP laboratory in The Hague delivers BIH identifications using new technology

The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) has submitted three new DNA match reports to the BIH Missing Persons Institute (MPI) using technology that is now being developed at ICMP’s laboratory in The Hague, FENA reports. The matches – which mean that three previously unidentified sets of human remains have been identified – were made possible by the hugely increased analytical power of next generation DNA technologies, known as Massively Parallel Sequencing (MPS). http://bit.ly/2VjEhUS

Drug-related extrajudicial killings worldwide continue

According to a new report from Harm Reduction International (HRI), executions for drug offenses are on the wane worldwide, however anti-drug user violence continues across the globe Filter Magazine reports. Most notably, state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings of people suspected of using or trading drugs continue in the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte, and “a similar assault on people associated with drugs is…

Amnesty warns of growing impunity in the Middle East and North Africa

Amnesty International’s annual survey of the human rights situation in the Middle East and North Africa underlines ongoing crackdowns on dissent and civil society in Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia and condemns what it describes as growing impunity across the region, Associated Press reports. http://bit.ly/2SpNKYU

Sri Lanka: government criticized for slow progress on accountability

The Tamil Guardian reports that families of the disappeared from northeast Sri Lanka have held a mass rally in Kilinochchi rejecting the prospect of Sri Lanka being given more time to deliver on its co-sponsored UN Human Rights Council resolution, under which it committed to provide justice and accountability. https://bit.ly/2TizCFh

South Sudan: widespread human rights abuses as conflict rages

The Guardian reports on the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan’s conclusion that routine and continuing abuses there “may amount to serious war crimes”. The…

Italy: 10,787 unaccompanied foreign minors

The Italian news agency ANSA reports that, according to UNICEF, a total of 10,787 unaccompanied foreign minors are currently residing in Italy, down from the 18,000 registered at the end of 2017. The decrease was due to a drop in arrivals and to the fact that many teenagers who arrived over the last two years have turned 18, UNICEF says. Overall, 3,536 minors travelled to Italy by sea on their own. http://bit.ly/2SrYuGb

Iraq: new mass grave of Yezidi discovered in Nineveh

Iraqi security forces have discovered a mass grave, containing 23 bodies of Yezidi victims killed by Da’esh militants, in Al-Mahalbiyah Town, on the northwest of Nineveh Province, the Lalish web portal based in Duhok reports. Security forces have started exhumations, and remains will be sent to the Medical Legal Office in Mosul to be examined and later identified. (Original article in Arabic) https://bit.ly/2ICOtq2

Bosnia…