Identifying Bosnian Genocide Victims
The International Commission on Missing Persons Uses Forensics
Sep 17, 2009
According to a July 2009 Associated Press article, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) matches DNA from relatives of war victims to the DNA of bones found near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica. Unfortunately — for both the relatives and scientists — human remains were widely scattered during the conflict, making positive identifications difficult.
The International Commission on Missing Persons
Established in 1996, the organization helps governments in various parts of the world to identify victims of natural disasters and wartime conflicts. According to its website, the agency’s primary role is to “ensure the cooperation of governments in locating and identifying those who have disappeared during armed conflict or as a result of human rights violations.” It also works to encourage public involvement and aids in preparing appropriate tributes to the missing.
The ICMP, headquartered in Sarajevo, uses DNA as a first step in the identification of missing persons. By matching DNA from blood of living relatives to DNA from bones of exhumed remains, the agency can identify large numbers of missing persons. In addition, it has developed an extensive database of relatives of missing people, and archives bone samples taken from the remains of exhumed bodies.
Genocide in the Bosnian War
The Bosnian War (March 1992 - November 1995) was an armed conflict between the former Yugoslavian republics of Bosnia, Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (then composed of Serbia and Montenegro). According to reports by The United Nations and the International Court of Justice, ethnic tensions between Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, and Croats escalated to violence after republics in the former Yugoslavia began to declare independence in 1991. While Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims were convicted of genocide, a 1995 CIA report indicates 90% of the war crimes were committed by Serbs.
Led by Serbian president Slobodan Miloševic and military commander Ratko Mladic, Serbian atrocities against opposing ethnic groups turned to slaughter in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, a U.N. - declared safe area. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) reports that more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were systematically executed. After reports of the massacre got out, Serb troops used bulldozers to move remains in an effort to conceal the evidence.
Identifying Bosnian War Victims
According to the Associated Press report, the heavy machinery plowed and ripped up bodies, causing fragments of the same person to be scattered among several sites. The head of the ICMP, Kathryn Bomberger, described one victim coming to their lab from five different locations in 11 different body bags. She describes the agency’s work in Srebrenica as “the biggest forensic puzzle that exists anywhere in the world.”
The ICMP has collected 87,049 blood samples from relatives of the missing and has analyzed their DNA profiles. The agency is working to match those with the DNA profiles of 29,185 bone samples that have been exhumed from mass graves. Investigators have identified 12,518 individuals in Bosnia. Of those, 6,185 are Srebrenica victims.
The ICMP is the world's largest DNA-assisted identification program, and carries out work in Chile, Iraq, Colombia, Norway, Kuwait and the Philippines. According to the AP, “it helped identify victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the remains of those who died in the 2004 Asian tsunami.”
Sources
Carroll, Chris. “Serbs Face the Future.” National Geographic. Jul. 2009: 96-119.
Cerkez-Robinson, Aida. “Agency identifies Bosnian war victims scattered in mass graves.” Associated Press. 12 Jul. 2009.
Cohen, Roger. “C.I.A. Report on Bosnia Blames Serbs for 80% of the War Crimes.” The New York Times. 9 March 1995.
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