Following meetings in Manila earlier this year between Philippine government officials and senior ICMP staff, two DNA scientists from the Philippine National Police (PNP) completed five weeks of training at ICMP’s facilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in September and October.

The Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, suffers from devastating typhoons. Although its disaster-response capacity is substantial – Philippines medical teams were dispatched to Thailand and Indonesia to offer assistance in the wake of the 2004 Tsunami – identification of missing persons is complicated by administrative factors. Among other things, DNA evidence has not been fully integrated in the country’s judicial process, which means that a key element in an effective system of identifying missing persons – resolving legal status – is not yet in place.

“We are working case by case, but in a mass disaster situation you…

Rene Huel examines the forensic and ethical implications of a multi-generational missing persons case

During a two-day battle in July 1944, the Norwegian Ski Battalion (SS-Schijäger-Bataillon “Norge”) incurred heavy losses in the hills of Kaprolat and Hasselmann in the Karelia region (now in the Soviet Union). The troops were among about 15,000 Norwegians who volunteered for combat duty with the Wehrmacht during World War Two. It is estimated that 190 Norwegian soldiers took part in the Karelian battle: approximately 100 were killed, 40 were taken prisoner and 50 escaped. This was the largest loss of Norwegian soldiers in a single incident in the whole of the war. After 1945, soldiers who had fought on the German side were viewed as traitors: survivors faced the possibility of prosecution as collaborators.

When relatives of those who had gone missing in the Kaprolat and Hasselmann engagement…

The first Conference of State Parties of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) was held on 29 October at the Foreign Ministry of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in The Hague. The meeting, was chaired by a representative of the United Kingdom.

The CSP brings together countries that have signed the Agreement on the Status and Functions of ICMP: the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg signed the agreement in December 2014 and other countries, including El Salvador, are expected to sign in the near future. Representatives of El Salvador, Germany, the US, Interpol and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) attended the inaugural Conference as observers.

The CSP discussed ICMP’s plan of work through 2018.  Among key activities for the period, ICMP will host the first meeting in November of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee on Missing Persons, whose initial focus will…

Bojana Dzokanovic and Kevin Sullivan explore the campaign to account for hundreds of thousands of victims buried in mass graves in Indonesia 50 years ago.

In early October, 77-year old Tom Iljas, an Indonesian who has spent decades living in Sweden, visited a site in Western Sumatra where he believed his father may have been buried. His father was one of the victims of the violent 1965-66 campaign against communists and communist sympathizers that is generally reckoned to have resulted in the killing of a least 500,000 people.

Mr Iljas was unable to explore the site, as he was arrested by police and then deported from Indonesia. His only offense was to look for his father’s grave.

In a related incident, also in October, editors of a student magazine at a well-known university in Central Java were questioned by police after they published an…

By Bojana Djokanovic

Around 30 people are believed to have been subject to enforced disappearance in Nepal between 1960 and 1989 – but this number increased exponentially during the ten-year conflict between Maoist guerrillas and the government in Kathmandu. More than 10,000 people died in the 1996-2006 war and more than 1,300 were reported as missing.

The conflict was launched by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) after it was prevented from participating in a national election. Unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment were widespread and committed by both sides. According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, up to 9,000 cases of serious violations of international human rights or humanitarian law may have been committed, although there is a widely acknowledged…

The Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) and the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will make it possible for the two organizations to collaborate more closely.

Under the agreement, which was signed by Director-General of  the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice Gerard Roes and ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger, the two organizations will cooperate on joint project proposals, provide mutual support in field operations and collaborate on rule-of-law programs that require forensic expertise and training. This builds on a strong relationship that has been developed over a period of years.

“ICMP is a very experienced institution with an outstanding reputation,” said Kees Möhring, NFI Director of External Relations. “It is a specialist in using DNA methods for identification. DNA is also a specialty of the NFI, both for identification purposes and forensic purposes. Combining the skills and expertise…

Six years after the end of what is generally regarded as the longest armed conflict in Asia, relatives still search for answers about the whereabouts of their missing family members. The precise number of persons who are missing as a result of the Sri Lankan conflict remains a matter of dispute. Media reports highlight the discrepancies between numbers given by government and non-government agencies and numbers based on cases reported by families searching for their relatives.  The Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) of the UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights has recorded 5,671 reported cases of wartime-related disappearance in Sri…