In mid-August, forensic experts developed new techniques for searching for mass graves, combining satellite imaging and spectral analysis to measure changes in the composition of the ground surface. It also uses vegetation analysis and soil conductivity testing.
Until now, most mass graves have been discovered by tip-offs from witnesses. Those graves have largely proved to be “secondary” graves, where remains have been transferred from one place to another in an attempt to cover up the crime.
The ICMP has also discovered that the most common plant found to grow on the site of mass graves is the stinging nettle, which can easily be detected via satellite imaging. The ICMP’s technologies and methods are also being applied elsewhere in the world.
Bosnia unites missing persons institutes
ISN SECURITY WATCH (31/08/05) - Bosnia and Herzegovina on Tuesday formed a single cross-ethnic missing persons organization in an effort to ease the search for thousands of people still missing from the 1992-1995 war.
The newly founded Missing Persons Institute (MPI) for the first time unites separate Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim), Croat, and Serb organizations, in a move to foster inter-ethnic cooperation to find those still missing from a war that killed some 200,000 people.
The MPI will take over the responsibilities of the Bosnian Serb-run Republika Srpska Office on Missing and Detained Persons and the Bosniak- and Croat-run Federation Commission on Missing Persons.
Kathryne Bomberger, the head of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in Bosnia, said the MPI would create a central database of missing persons to help establish exactly how many there are.
“It will help address the concerns of family members and their communities about the actual numbers of missing persons and where they went missing,” Bomberger told a Tuesday press conference.
The MPI will also have operational capacities to investigate the truth concerning the fate of the missing.
Importantly, the new missing persons organization gives Bosnia a national mechanism for dealing with missing persons and the truth behind their fate.
Both the international community and local authorities agreed that the establishment of a single, cross-ethnic missing persons institute was one of the most significant steps taken towards post-war reconciliation in some time.
Since the end of the war, political manipulation of figures representing missing persons has made it difficult to determine the exact number. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimates the number of missing at 21,000, while the ICMP’s estimate is around 30,000. Bosnian officials estimate there are some 28,000 still missing.
Some 12,500 missing Bosnians have already been found and identified. Of those, 6,000 remains have been identified using the ICMP’s state-of-the-art DNA testing, while another 7,500 exhumed bodies are still awaiting identification. One-third of the bodies identified were from Srebrenica, the site in July 1995 of Europe’s worst massacre since World War II, when some 8,000 Bosniaks were killed.
“The MPI will ultimately establish a central, transparent list of persons missing from the conflict in this country, which will leave no room for the damaging political manipulation of the numbers of victims that we have seen,” Marko Jurisic, member of Federal Commission representing Bosnian Croats told the Tuesday press conference.
The Bosniak president of Federal Commission for Missing Persons, Amor Masovic, said that in the past ten years, since the end of the war, politicians have used missing persons and their families for their own political goals.
“This issue must be depoliticized and it is necessary to prevent abuse of information on missing persons for daily political purposes. Politicians are going to be excluded from exhumations,” Masovic told ISN Security Watch.
“Searching for missing persons and their identification must become a humanitarian and legal issue. Politics has no place here,” Milan Bogdanovic, the president of Republika Srpska Missing Persons Commission, told a press conference.
The new institute will use Bosnian technology developed by the ICMP and expert personnel. The families of missing persons will also participate in the process through monitoring and advisory boards.
In mid-August, forensic experts developed new techniques for searching for mass graves, combining satellite imaging and spectral analysis to measure changes in the composition of the ground surface. It also uses vegetation analysis and soil conductivity testing.
Until now, most mass graves have been discovered by tip-offs from witnesses. Those graves have largely proved to be “secondary” graves, where remains have been transferred from one place to another in an attempt to cover up the crime.
The ICMP has also discovered that the most common plant found to grow on the site of mass graves is the stinging nettle, which can easily be detected via satellite imaging. The ICMP’s technologies and methods are also being applied elsewhere in the world.
(By Anes Alic in Sarajevo) www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=12674