During a two day trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Interpol Secretary General, Ronald K. Noble visited the headquarters office of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in Sarajevo and its facilities and programs in Tuzla. His visit was prompted by the successful work the two organizations had contributed to in providing assistance to the Government of Thailand following the December 2004 tsunami.Accompanied by the Deputy Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Council of Ministers, Mijo Krešić and the ICMP Director-General, Ms. Kathryne Bomberger, he visited the ICMP facilities where mortal remains of Srebrenica victims are re-associated and identified, as well as the global center where blood samples collected by ICMP from relatives of the missing and all bone samples received from government authorities are archived and sent to ICMP labs in Sarajevo and Banja Luka for DNA testing.

After his tour of ICMP facilities, Mr. Noble said that he was not only impressed with ICMP's achievements in assisting the victims of natural and other disasters, such as the tsunami and the Cameroon plane crash of 114, but of its contribution to the process of locating, recovering and identifying missing persons from armed conflict and crimes against humanity.

“In cases of natural disasters, plane crashes, or – God forbid – terrorist attacks, INTERPOL will ask ICMP to assist”, said Ronald K. Noble.

“I would like to thank ICMP in resolving this very important issue. We appreciate their work and efforts in identification of war victims” said Mijo Krešić.

“I am very impressed with professionalism of ICMP”, stressed Ronald K. Noble.

“Our organizations learned a great deal from responding to the overwhelming demands of identifying the victims of the tsunami. We are now in a better position to coordinate rapid response efforts for future needs,” said Kathryne Bomberger and added that ICMP is looking forward to future cooperation with Interpol.

ICMP's success in developing an integrated scientific approach to addressing the problem of missing persons has made it a leader in advancing forensic sciences in the service of truth and justice. To date, ICMP has made over 12,500 DNA assisted identifications.