prijava
SARAJEVO, May 7 (FENA) - In 12 morgues in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are remains of almost three thousand victims of the past war who have not yet been identified.
The spokesperson of the Missing Persons Institute (MPI) of BIH, Emza Fazlić, said in an interview with FENA that the largest number of them are located in the premises of the Podrinje identification center in Tuzla, while a large number of unidentified remains are also located in four morgues within the scope of the Regional Office East Sarajevo, i.e. in morgues in Travnik, Visoko, Goražde and Miljevići.
In the Identification Center of Šejkovača, in Sanski Most, there are 340 unidentified remains.
Fazlić notes that almost half of the total number of remains that have not been identified, more precisely around 1,600 remains, are cases from which a DNA sample was isolated but there was no match with the blood samples of the families of the missing persons all these years.
"We believe that this number of remains from which DNA was isolated, but which for all these years had no match, is to a certain extent the result of wrong classic identifications. As a reminder, until 2001, the victims were identified using the classic method, that is, the method of identification, mostly by clothing and other items, physical constitution, premortal injuries and the like,” says Fazlić.
According to her, such a method is not completely reliable, and errors were made, the corrections of which the Missing Persons Institute works daily. Up to 10 cases in which identities have been replaced are corrected annually.
She notes the association of families of missing persons plays a key role, which must encourage its members who have identified their family members using the classic method to donate blood to verify these identifications and correct errors.
According to her, when it comes to other unidentified victims who do not belong to this group, they cannot be attributed to wrong identifications.
"Namely, this number of 3,000 also includes the remains of victims who have been identified by the DNA method and are awaiting official identification by their families. In many cases, they are also awaiting identification for reassociation, that is, adding later-found skeletal remains to those that were buried earlier.
Some of them have been identified by their families, but they still haven't given their consent for the burial of the victims, says Fazlić.
(FENA) A. B.
