POLITICS-YUGOSLAVIA: DNA Lab to Solve Mysteries of the Missing

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Sep 25 2002 (IPS) - A new DNA laboratory has been opened in Belgrade in an effort to close the cases of more than 40,000 people still reported missing in former Yugoslavia.

“Our lab has the capacity to identify 1,000 samples a month,” Dr Oliver Stojkovic, head of the project told IPS. “It’s not much compared to the number of people still missing, but it is the biggest project of the kind in the world.”

The lab has been established by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP). The ICMP was set up in 1996 when the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina ended, but its work soon expanded to trace the missing from the 1991-95 war in Croatia and the conflict in Kosovo in 1998-99.

The Belgrade lab is the fourth and most important DNA lab to come up in the region. It will deal with Y-chromosome extractions (only males have Y chromosomes and they are carried from fathers to sons; all male members of one family have the same Y chromosomes). Most of the missing from wars in former Yugoslavia are men.

The ICMP set up three DNA labs earlier in Bosnia-Herzegovina. A lab in Tuzla deals with DNA analysis of blood samples, the lab at Sarajevo also in Bosnia deals with bone analysis, and the third in Banjaluka specialises in complicated cases of burned bodies or bodies destroyed with chemicals.

The labs will seek to identify the remains of missing people all over former Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav federation now comprises Serbia with a population of 7.5 million, and tiny Montenegro with a population of 650,000. Montenegro escaped violence but people were killed or went missing almost everywhere else in former Yugoslavia, which split into the Yugoslav federation, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia.

Bloody wars in the early nineties led to the independence of Croatia and Bosnia. Former President Slobodan Milosevic had backed Serbs living in those areas against the independence struggle by Croats and Bosnians. The wars ended in 1995 but there is still no trace of many missing men.

These were in essence civil wars. People spoke the same language and there were many mixed marriages. Only religion separated them. Croats are mostly Catholics, Bosnians are Muslims and Serbs are Orthodox Christians. Later there was a bloody conflict between Serbian forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo within Serbia.

“There can be no reconciliation, multiethnic environment or rule of law unless the painful truth about missing persons is finally established,” says senior Serbian official Nebojsa Covic. “The truth will also lead to bringing to justice those who committed war crimes in an environment that tends to minimise them, specially in Serbia.”

Statistics show that most of the missing all over former Yugoslavia are non-Serbs. The new Serbian administration says it is significant that the key part of the DNA lab network has been opened in Belgrade, as the new Serb government distances itself from the politics of Milosevic.

Now everyone is trying to be good neighbours, though wounds still run deep. The international community is trying to help normalisation and reconciliation with joint projects such as the DNA labs spread all over former Yugoslavia. But people from all nations are reluctant or even afraid to give samples. Matching them to remains is evidently frightening business.

The four labs now make a complete network of ICMP labs in former Yugoslavia. Bosnia was chosen to host the first three labs because it has the biggest number of missing, but samples taken all over former Yugoslavia now get analysed in all four labs.

“We’re encouraging relatives of the missing to give samples to these DNA labs,” Ed Huffine, director of forensic science with ICMP told IPS. “If family members do not give samples, no match is ever going to be found.”

The three older labs have put together a database of 15,000 bone and blood samples so far. Experts say they need at least 100,000 samples to get the c omplete database for the estimated 40,000 missing.

“Identification with samples from surviving parents is the ideal situation but this is scarcely possible,” says Huffine. “We also take samples from brothers or sisters, if there are any.”

Children carry the DNA of both parents. In samples taken from children the DNA of the mother is excluded from the sample and the DNA of the deceased father is matched with the remaining DNA of the child. Scientists therefore need several samples from close relatives. “But in many cases we are faced with dead end streets,” says Huffine.

Besides the 15,000 samples in these labs, another 3,500 have been collected in Kosovo. More than 3,700 people, mostly Kosovo Albanians, are still missing in this southern province of Serbia.

Each sample is bar-coded and translated into a digital formula. Every sample is filed to the central computer in Tuzla. The programmes for DNA matching at this centre are a triumph of software engineering, experts say.