NFI speaks about missing persons at international conference
Natural disasters, wars, and airplane accidents. These are just a few examples of events where people go missing. In order to exchange ideas at the international level about the possibilities available for the investigation of missing persons, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) has organised the conference ‘The Missing’. The conference will be held from 29 October up to and including 1 November. The Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) is one of the speakers.
"ICMP and NFI do have a lot in common. We both have a strong international profile and highly skilled labs and technology and combining this is really challenging. ICMP highly appreciates the contribution of the NFI to the conference and looks forward to strengthen the already existing cooperation on fields like DNA and forensic archaeology," says Kathryne Bomberger, Director-General of the ICMP.
From war to natural disaster
During the conference, attention will be paid to the following four themes:
- Armed conflicts and human rights abuses
- Disasters and mass calamities
- Organised violence and migration
- Challenges to global efforts to account for the missing
The NFI will be a panel member during the panel discussion on disasters and large-scale calamities. The topic of discussion will be ‘preparation’.
Experience at home and abroad
The NFI has gained experience in the investigation of disasters and calamities both in the Netherlands and abroad. In the Netherlands, the NFI was, for instance, involved in the investigation of the Bijlmer disaster and the Enschede fireworks disaster. Abroad, the assistance of the NFI was called in for the identification of victims of, among other things, the tsunami in Asia and the airplane crash in Tripoli.
Bonaparte software tool for identification
For the identification of victims of the airplane crash in Tripoli, the NFI used the Bonaparte software tool. In the event of a disaster, it is also essential to the family that victims are identified as quickly as possible. This can be done by comparing the DNA profiles of the missing persons with the DNA profiles of the unidentified victims. But there is not always sufficient DNA from the victims or the missing persons to generate a DNA profile. In those cases, the 'matching' must be done indirectly. This is done by using the DNA profiles of family members. In this case, the separate DNA that has been found is matched with the DNA of the victim’s or missing person’s family by the Bonaparte computerised method for calculating probability.
Together with SNN Adaptive Intelligence of Radboud University Nijmegen, the NFI has developed this software tool for large-scale familial searches on the basis of DNA profiles. During the conference ‘The Missing’, the Bonaparte software tool will be brought to the attention of the international community.
Importance of clear allocation of roles
The experience gained by the NFI during national and international disasters and calamities will be discussed in the presentation given by the NFI at the conference. The focus of the presentation will be on the differences between working in one’s own country, where the cooperating partners are familiar with each others’ work, and working abroad, where this is often not the case. The purpose of NFI’s presentation is to emphasise the importance of quickly achieving a clear allocation of roles when local and international organisations must work together abroad in the event of a disaster or calamity.
NFI has a total investigation package
The fact that the NFI covers more than forty different fields of expertise makes it possible for the NFI to investigate nearly all aspects of a calamity or a disaster involving missing persons. The NFI can deploy experts who are able to secure the relevant evidence on a crime scene, but can also deploy DNA experts, forensic archaeologists, and forensic anthropologists who may play an important role in the identification of victims.