Forensic anthropology identifies long-gone Srebrenica victims

This week I will be posting video clips and impressions from my trip to Tuzla and Srebrenica to meet with investigators and victims of the July 1995 massacres. I went first to the DNA tracking facility in Tuzla operated by the International Commission on Missing Persons, which was established in 1996. In the clip above, ...

This week I will be posting video clips and impressions from my trip to Tuzla and Srebrenica to meet with investigators and victims of the July 1995 massacres. I went first to the DNA tracking facility in Tuzla operated by the International Commission on Missing Persons, which was established in 1996. In the clip above, you can see my interview with an ICMP forensic anthropologist describing the laborious process of matching DNA samples to an individual victim.

This week I will be posting video clips and impressions from my trip to Tuzla and Srebrenica to meet with investigators and victims of the July 1995 massacres. I went first to the DNA tracking facility in Tuzla operated by the International Commission on Missing Persons, which was established in 1996. In the clip above, you can see my interview with an ICMP forensic anthropologist describing the laborious process of matching DNA samples to an individual victim.

The identification process was greatly complicated by attempts by Bosnian Serb authorities to conceal the scale of the killings, which involved some 8,000 Moslem men and boys. After journalists and politicians began inquiring about the massacres, the Republika Srpska authorities bulldozed the original gravesites, and reburied the remains in a series of secondary sites.

Dragana showed me the skeleton of a man that was reassembled from three different locations. In order to trace the victim, she had to take DNA samples from bones discovered at each location. (The separate locations are marked by blue tape, clearly visible on the video.) These DNA samples were then checked against a database of more than 70,000 samples provided by relatives of missing persons in Bosnia. As you can see, several pieces of the skeleton are still missing.

Now that Dragana has reassembled most of the skeleton, she will report her findings to her case manager. The manager will call in the relatives of the victim and inform them that DNA evidence has established at least a 99.95 per cent probability that these remains belong to their loved one. They will then be able to conduct a burial service — sixteen years after the Srebrenica massacre.

Michael Dobbs is a prize-winning foreign correspondent and author. Currently serving as a Goldfarb fellow at the Committee on Conscience of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Dobbs is following legal proceedings in The Hague. He has traveled to Srebrenica, Sarajevo and Belgrade, interviewed Mladic’s victims and associates, and is posting documents, video recordings, and intercepted phone calls that shed light on Mladic's personality. Twitter: @michaeldobbs

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