Symposium on the Identification Of Deceased Migrants

In the present European migration crisis Italy is dealing with an enormous number of dead victims; recent statistics show that one in eight who attempt the crossing die. Over half remain unidentified and do not receive the same attention as for any other mass disaster. Since 2014 the Commissioner for Missing Persons’ office of Government (UCPS) has set up a project to facilitate the identification of migrant victims together with the University of Milano’s LABANOF (Laboratorio di Antropologia e Odontologia Forense). A Memorandum of Understanding signed in October 2014 conferred to the University of Milan the task to facilitate identification of the victims who died in three events: the October 3rd and 11th, 2013 Lampedusa disasters and subsequently the April 18th 2015 shipwreck. These two groups of disasters were selected as pilot studies in order to devise a system of post-mortem (PM) and ante-mortem (AM) data collection in the difficult scenario of migration. Work on the Lampedusa 2013 disasters has so far led to the acquisition of 70 AM profiles from as many families looking for their dead, half of which have already been identified. This experience revealed the difficulties in identification and the need for combined strategies. The project was then extended to the April 18th, 2015 disaster, where over 700 died. A maxi operation involving UCPS, the Italian Navy, the Prefecture of Siracusa, the Police Department, the Italian Military Red Cross and several Universities was created for managing the recovery and identification of victims. Forensic procedures adopted in this disaster included the detailed PM examination on each recovered body by a team of forensic experts. Because 10% of the bodies carried some sort of ID, it will be possible to begin AM data collection by initially targeting the countries and villages represented. At the moment the Italian Government is finalising activities aimed at creating a secure network for collecting AM data from the countries of origin and Europe. This will hopefully create a model which can be repeated in different scenarios and lead to identification. This Italian effort has proven the potential of Academia teaming up with Governmental offices and humanitarian organisations, in a European scenario in which the entire issue of unidentified bodies of migrants is being ignored.