20 Years Ago ICMP Issued First DNA Matching Report

(Patria) - On this day, 20 years ago, the ICMP published its first DNA matching report. As a result of this report, the body of a 15-year-old boy who went missing in Srebrenica was identified. This marked the beginning of a new, revolutionary process that uses an advanced database and DNA technology to identify a large number of persons missing as a result of armed conflicts and human rights violations.

“Working with families of the missing and governments in the Western Balkans, the ICMP became the first organization to successfully implement a mass identification process based on DNA analysis, conducted in a post-conflict environment. The use of DNA not only increased the speed of identification but also provided irrefutable evidence of the identity of individuals that could be linked to the original crime scene,” said Kathryne Bomberger, Director-General of the ICMP.

“This process enabled families of the missing to secure their right to truth and justice and laid the foundation for the irrefutable establishment of facts about the crimes committed. It helped uncover the truth about war crimes and, I hope, will prevent political manipulation of the missing persons issue,” she added.

Following the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, more than 40,000 persons were reported missing. The ICMP has supported the work of families of the missing and regional governments since 1996. In addition to supporting investigations into thousands of missing persons cases, creating legal frameworks for this purpose, and enabling the establishment of impartial institutions to address the missing persons issue, the ICMP has collected data, including genetic reference samples from over 100,000 families of the missing who voluntarily provided their data. This means that all families, regardless of nationality, religion, gender, or any other factor, participate in efforts to find their missing relatives. Additionally, the ICMP has received over 60,000 post-mortem samples from governments and issued 41,055 DNA matching reports, enabling DNA to be used as the primary method of identification in the region. This unprecedented achievement includes the identification of 7,000 of the nearly 8,000 persons missing from the Srebrenica genocide.

The ICMP’s mandate to provide support to states in fulfilling their legal obligations to investigate missing persons cases has also enabled it to assist in judicial processes for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The ICMP’s scientific data, including DNA reports, have been accepted as evidence in trials before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This evidence has been scrutinized many times and consistently confirmed.

The scientific approach established in the Western Balkans is now applied worldwide to search for and identify persons missing as a result of armed conflicts, human rights violations, and other causes. The ICMP’s Western Balkans program continues to assist governments in the region, which have formalized their relationship through the Missing Persons Group, to find and identify more than 11,000 persons still listed as missing. In July 2018 in London, leaders of the region’s countries and EU member states participating in the Berlin Process signed a Joint Declaration, which, among other things, reaffirms their commitment to supporting efforts to find those still missing. In November 2018 at the ICMP headquarters in The Hague, representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia signed a Framework Plan formally committing to work together as a regional missing persons group.

The ICMP is a treaty-based international organization headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands. Its mandate is to ensure cooperation by governments and other authorities in locating persons missing as a result of conflicts, human rights violations, disasters, organized crime, illegal migration, and other causes, and to provide them with assistance in these processes. It is the only international organization working exclusively on resolving the missing persons issue.