How Bosnia and Herzegovina Identified over 25,000 Missing Victims of the War
The implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement in December 1995 put an end to a vicious civil war that left more than 100,000 dead in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The agreement paved the road to rebuilding the country, but success would depend on easing internal ethnic tensions. That posed another challenge: finding and identifying, without discrimination, 31,500 missing victims of the conflict.
Almost 25 years later — and with the anniversary of a quarter of a century of the Srebrenica massacre approaching on July 11th — BiH achieved what no other post-conflict country has: over 70% of those missing during the civil war have been found and identified.
So, how was that possible?
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) began recording missing persons in BiH when the conflict was ongoing. Over time, local authorities and civil society groups also set up commissions with the same goal.
These groups came up to different estimates though. In part, because some of them were only looking for the missing from their own national or ethnic groups. This fed internal tensions.
In this context, the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP) was set up at a G-7 meeting in 1996. The independent organization would lead the process of finding and identifying those missing.
That same year, Bosnia’s national entities agreed on an official cooperation. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska determined rules for the exhumation of remains in each entity and allowed commissions from both sides to take part in the process.
ICMP provided BiH with know-how, forensic anthropologists and pathologists. But the revolution came in 2000, with the use of DNA to identify the victims of the conflict.
The commission collected over 71,000 DNA samples from relatives of the missing. These came from first and second-degree family members as a way of increasing the certainty of any match. Then, the ICMP used a computerized system to find matches between the two databases. This approach helped to identify over 14,000 people.
This support led to significant scientific advances in the search and identification efforts. Furthermore: it resulted in a network of forensic centers and DNA laboratories in BiH.
Throughout the years, the ICMP developed refined techniques for DNA analysis and DNA extraction from highly deteriorated samples.
The commission’s activities went beyond forensics though. It pressured the government to release information about missing persons. It also included local actors in operational and governance roles within the organization.
It’s important to state that other organizations played relevant roles in the efforts to find missing persons in the country. These include the ICRC, Physicians for Human Rights, and the United Nations.
How does the identification process work?
The ICMP worked with two types of DNA samples: presumptive and non-presumptive. In the first case, a relative recognized an object in the victim’s remains, there was some form of ID near the body, or when physical aspects match those of the missing person. In the latter cases, there is no other element that can help identify the remains.
For the ICMP to issue an identity confirmation report, the match must have a 99.95% certainty level. With this report, local authorities can close a case and issue the death certificate.
Since 2008, the Missing Persons Institute (MPI) receives all DNA compatibility reports. This state agency deals with the identification process without discrimination by ethnic group. Its launch in 2005 marked the transfer of ICMP activities to the Bosnian government.
Some of the confusion over the many databases of missing persons in BiH ended in 2011. The Missing Persons Records Center combined 12 different datasets collected by various organizations. Thus, it was possible to drop duplicate records.
Identification of remains in the field
In 1993, a gypsum mine near Prijedor served as a dumping ground for the remains of hundreds of people. The bodies had been relocated from a different grave, a common trick to avoid the identification of ethnic massacres in BiH.
In a 2001 forensic study, Jose Pablo Baraybar and Marek Gasior detailed the process of determining the cause of death of those victims. Forensic anthropologists and pathologists looked for patterns of violation of international humanitarian law.
The illegal relocation caused damages to the remains and left some bodies incomplete. This made it difficult to identify the causes of death. Still, the experts were able to analyze 298 individuals.
Baraybar and Gasior only analyzed skeletons that had signs of fatal gunshots. That amounted to almost 39% of the sample. Over 53% of the gunshots were fired at the back of the victims’ heads, followed by 24% in the front.
The study states that most fatal injuries occurred due to firearms. This is relevant since gunshots might suggest executions.
Transferring responsibility
Several laws in BiH define the responsibilities and roles of domestic institutions in the search for the missing of the civil war. The Missing Persons Act of 2004, for instance, sets the social and economic rights of the families of the missing. It also clarifies that the State handles the search and identification of remains through the MPI.
The MPI documents and maintains the records of the missing and the locations of mass graves. Other responsibilities include asking the court to initiate investigations and participating in excavations, examinations, identification, and storage of remains.
There are still around 8,000 missing persons in BiH (more than 25,000 people have been identified). A survey conducted by the ICMP in 2011 showed that over 70% of Bosnians believe that searching for the missing contributes to reconciliation.
