Joint teams of satellite imagery experts, geology experts and forensic archaeologists from the United Kingdom and the United States have completed a research visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina to investigate new methods of locating and mapping mass graves. The experts from Britain’s University of Birmingham and Applied Analysis Incorporated (AAI), a US private company specializing in processing satellite images, were part of a multi-disciplinary project organized and implemented by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP). The initial research phase of the project was completed on Monday, while further analyses and cost-benefit estimates will be forthcoming.One of the most difficult aspects of finding and identifying victims of conflict or human rights abuses is often locating the graves, which have frequently been hidden by the perpetrators. In many cases in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the bodies have also been moved from one location to another in order to cover-up evidence of the crime. Most mass…

The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) finalized agreements today with authorities in Thailand on the identification of victims of the December 2004 South East Asian tsunami. ICMP is already analyzing bone samples sent to its headquarters in Sarajevo to obtain DNA profiles; today’s agreement means ICMP will also match the bone DNA profiles with DNA profiles of the missing.ICMP’s specialized DNA STR (short tandem repeat) Matching Software, which will be used in the identification of tsunami victims, was developed initially to assist in the identification of thousands of persons missing as a result of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

Short tandem repeat DNA analysis is the most accurate method for identification of missing persons. Each person inherits a set of short tandem repeats, or DNA patterns, from their parents, with one copy coming from their mother and their other from the father.

Three weeks ago, ICMP agreed with the…

As he completed a tour of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) forensic facilities in Tuzla today, US Ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina Douglas McElhaney said it was “Difficult to imagine a project more worthy of our attention.” Ambassador McElhaney toured the ICMP morgue and Identification Coordination Division (ICD) in Tuzla, and the ICMP Re-association Center in nearby Lukavac, where skeletal remains of the missing are put back together; skeletal remains were frequently separated and “commingled” when victims were reburied in secondary mass graves as the perpetrators of killings tried to hide evidence of their crimes.Using a combination of traditional anthropological work and a method whereby a limited DNA profile is generated to allow for re-association of separated body parts, the newly-established ICMP Re-association Center in Lukavac helps to ensure that more individuals are accounted for and that the process of re-association does not further delay the process of returning…

An exhibition of dramatic photographs by Bosnian photographer Samir Sinanovic depicting the exhumation, identification and burial of thousands of war crimes victims in northern Bosnia launched a week-long course about war crimes and genocide for postgraduate students in the Croatian coastal town of Dubrovnik on Monday, May 16, 2005.

Students, journalists, local Croatians and some tourists drawn in by flyers promoting the event around Dubrovnik’s “old city” came to the exhibition opening.

“We must never let people forget what happened,” said course director Professor Janja Bec-Neumann at the opening. “We want our students to learn to speak out when they see evil, not just genocide, for that is only the final stage, but they must learn to recognize the very earliest stages of evil so we can help to prevent it happening again. If we forget, it would be like killing them a second time,” she said.

The photography exhibition, entitled “Remembering…

A delegation of officials from Interpol, the international police organization based in Lyon, France, visited ICMP on Friday May 13, 2005, to discuss possible cooperation with the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) on Disaster Victim Identification around the world. Interpol is helping to coordinate international police efforts to identify the victims of the South East Asian tsunami disaster of last December.During their one-day visit to ICMP Sarajevo Headquarters on Friday, the Interpol officials met with ICMP Directors and DNA analysis and database experts to discuss coordination between ICMP and Interpol on tsunami victim identification.

After meeting with the Interpol officials, Kathryne Bomberger, ICMP Chief of Staff, emphasized that ICMP was ready to help identify victims however it could, “Although our mandate is to assist in the identification of persons missing as a result of conflict or human rights abuses,” she said, “We have the capability and the capacity to…

In response to the overwhelming problem of identification of victims of the December 2004 Asian tsunami, police from Thailand, the United Kingdom and Germany have asked the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) for assistance in the identification process using DNA.Thai Police, Scotland Yard and German Federal Police representatives brought 750 bone samples to ICMP’s Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, headquarters on Thursday (May 5, 2005). The bone samples will be analyzed within 60 days in ICMP’s DNA laboratories in Sarajevo and Tuzla, eastern Bosnia, to obtain DNA profiles. The joint delegation brought the bone samples to ICMP as prior testing performed by private DNA laboratories was not sufficiently successful.

Obtaining DNA profiles from hard tissue such as bone or teeth is more complicated than from soft tissue and as a result of its work in the identification of victims of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, ICMP has developed successful methods of…

At the invitation of associations of families of missing persons in Kosovo, a group of three Srebrenica family association representatives are visiting Kosovo from Bosnia-Herzegovina to participate in the commemoration of missing from the village of Meja on April 27 and to exchange experience with associations of families of missing persons in Kosovo.The annual event gathers thousands of local residents in memory of the 374 victims who were taken from Meja, near Gjakova in Kosovo on that April 27, 1999. To date, the bodies of 182 of them have been identified and 166 have been buried. On April 27, 2005 an additional 16 identified persons will be buried. The remains of victims from Meja were exhumed from mass graves in Batajnica, Serbia and were identified with the assistance of DNA matching by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).

The Srebrenica family representatives will make public remarks as part of…

In a region where political manipulation of numbers of killed and missing from previous wars fanned the flames of further conflicts, ICMP Chairman James Kimsey told reporters on Tuesday that accurate accounting of the missing is essential.Speaking after a tour of ICMP’s Identification Coordination Division (ICD) in Tuzla, eastern Bosnia, which houses the ICMP databases storing DNA information obtained from bones exhumed from grave sites and from blood samples of family members searching for missing relatives, Mr. Kimsey said the work of ICMP represented the first attempt in the world to accurately account for persons missing as a result of conflict. Since it made its first DNA match in November 2001, ICMP has found DNA matches with family members for more than 7,300 missing individuals at the ICD and every day brings more matches.

“DNA technology can now provide empirical evidence of a person’s identity and it can provide hard…

In talks with International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) Chairman James Kimsey this morning, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Adnan Terzić, and entity Prime Ministers Ahmet Hadžipašić and Pero Bukejlović, as well as the Mayor of the Brčko District, Mirsad Đapo, agreed on the Protocol to establish the Missing Persons Institute (MPI) as a State-level institution.At a press conference following the meeting, Mr. Kimsey, who is on a two-day visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina, told reporters that following intensive and successful deliberations with the governments, and with the full support of the families of the missing, the Protocol simply awaited final approval from the Council of Ministers. “I have a guarantee from Mr. Terzic that he will fast-track this procedure”, said Mr. Kimsey.

At a meeting later in the morning with the Chairman of the BiH Joint Presidency, His Excellency Borislav Paravac, Mr. Kimsey thanked Mr. Pavarac for supporting the…

The Royal Netherlands Embassy made a contribution of one million Euros yesterday to support the work of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in the identification of victims of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. The Netherlands Embassy has requested that the funding be used to assist in the identification of victims of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in particular of the 1995 fall of Srebrenica.Identification of the estimated 8,000 Srebrenica victims is complicated by the fact that many of the mass graves in which they were buried were dug up and the bodies moved, sometimes more than once, in efforts by the perpetrators to hide evidence of the killings. As a consequence, victims’ remains have been commingled in secondary mass graves; in some cases, the remains of a single victim are found in two or more grave sites.

“As we approach the tenth anniversary of the…