2024-01-03 19:00:00
Illustration: Angélica Herrera / ICRC Colombia
Once the work on the ground is completed, where recovery is achieved, a whole investigation and support work begins that seeks to find a single result: identification. Once the International Committee of the Red Cross delivers the body of the exhumed person to the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, a whole scientific work begins that aims to confirm the identity of the missing person. While this is happening, the ICRC continues to accompany the family who are waiting for a response. It can take up to years, but the news arrives and from there those who were looking for their loved one can get answers and say goodbye with dignity.
Transcription
[Dramatizado]: We have to keep digging…
This appears to be a bone. I’m going to examine it and confirm that it is a part of the human body.
Everything is ready, we can now deliver it to the institutions of the state medicolegal system.
[Jorge]: In the previous episode we explained what the work of the forensic experts of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is like in the search and recovery of people reported missing in the context of armed conflicts and violence.
Today, we will talk about the process of identifying the bodies that are recovered by the team and how to dialogue with family members during this process.
[Jorge]: Before starting with the identification, it is important to know from Pedro Pérez, ICRC forensic examiner, the amount of information that a bone in the human body can have.
Pedro, could you explain to us, please?
[Pedro Pérez]: Even if the smallest piece of the human being that we find is going to have some information.
Because even a genetic profile can be extracted from a small piece of bone, but let’s say that all parts of the human body have their information and also give us valuable information about who the person was? And what happened to the person? That’s why it is also very important that when work is going to be done to recover a body, to exhume a body, it is done with all the necessary techniques and with all the necessary methodology. from forensic archeology so that these bodies of these people are recovered in the most dignified way possible, in the most respectful way possible.
But also in the appropriate possible scientific way that all the international protocols for this work suggest, because that is where we guarantee that a recovery was carried out in an adequate manner and that the greatest number of bone structures in the body of that person was recovered. Looking For.
[Dramatizado]: How was your recovery?
[Dramatizado]: Well, it was six hours between car and mule to get to the point. We have already handed over the body to the competent authorities.
[Jorge]: In Colombia, the National Institute of Legal Medicine of Forensic Sciences is not the only entity in charge of identifying bodies.
The Technical Investigation Corps of the Attorney General’s Office (CTI), the DIJIN, the SIJIN, among others, also carry out this task.
[Jorge]: What follows from the delivery for identification of the body?
Camilo Hernández, ICRC forensic examiner, explains to us.
[Camilo Hernández]: Once the bodies are received by the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, an interdisciplinary team is assigned to address the case. This interdisciplinary team is made up of at least a forensic doctor, a dentist and a forensic anthropologist who perform a reading. of the documentation provided and accordingly they plan the approach to the case in the necropsy room, a complete necropsy is performed in accordance with the procedures established by the institutions and in accordance with international scientific standards.
[Jorge]: This is a lengthy process from what we hear. Camilo, how long can it take to get a result?
[Camilo Hernández]: The necropsy procedure and identification of bone remains is a complex procedure that requires a thorough analysis of the elements available for the study. The vast majority of corpses are identified by fingerprints, which is a very quick procedure, on the contrary, the bone remains must be comprehensively identified once the results of the genetic, dental, anthropological and medical studies are obtained.
In many cases, due to the state of deterioration of the bone remains due to the passage of time, new analyzes are required in order to provide certainty regarding the identity of a person.
[Jorge]: While the identification is being made…
What happens to families who are waiting for a response and what is the support?
To answer this question, Jorge Araujo from the ICRC protection unit joins us.
[Jorge Araujo]: The International Committee of the Red Cross provides support to the family, ensuring that they have completed the SIRDEC report and that they have provided biological samples in order to facilitate the identification process.
Likewise, families receive our psychosocial support so that they are emotionally prepared for the moment of receiving the human remains of their loved ones.
[Jorge]: The report of the Information System Network of Missing Persons and Corpses (SIRDEC) to which Jorge refers, is where the data of people reported as missing and of the corpses that enter state institutions are stored.
[Dramatizado]: We already have the result from Legal Medicine…
The body found corresponds to the person we were looking for, we can now inform the family.
[Jorge]: Now the ICRC, in coordination with the state institutions that participate in the identification process, organizes the delivery of the identified body to their loved ones.
They will be able to give him a worthy farewell according to their customs! A stage full of uncertainty and doubts ends, not knowing what had happened to his family member.
[Jorge]: It is the greatest professional satisfaction that I have been able to feel as a forensic anthropologist and as a humanitarian worker, it does not compare with absolutely anything, it is truly very gratifying because we are giving an answer and providing a response to a specific need of many families in Colombia who have lost a loved one and who have disappeared due to the same dynamics of the armed conflict.
So when we do this work we manage to find the bodies of these deceased people who are identified by the competent authorities, which we manage to deliver to the next of kin. That’s when I realized that we are doing a great job here in Colombia, that we are doing humanitarian work. exceptional exemplary worldwide and where I realize that I am working in the right place, in the right scenario and for the people who need it most in this country.
#Colombia #living #middle #conflict #season #episode #dignified #farewell