The General Authority for Research and Identification of Missing Persons announced that it has completed approximately 98% of the files of the families of the victims of the Derna disaster, indicating that its efforts to deal with this file are continuing.
The Authority, through its Chairman Kamal Al-Siwi, said in an interview with the Libyan News Agency that it worked on two aspects in the victims’ file, the first related to the files opened by the victims’ families and reporting the bodies lost in the floods.
According to Al-Siwi, the second part is related to the challenges facing the authority from the victims’ families, which is the refusal to open files due to their absence in the areas and the lack of the possibility of communicating with them.
Al-Siwi pointed out that the Authority adhered to the lists referred to it by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Public Prosecution, which are the lists for which the Authority committed to opening files from the relatives of the missing.
Samples and lack of resources
Al-Siwi said that the authority took DNA samples from all the bodies that were buried randomly, all of which were recovered from valleys, the sea, or inside residential neighborhoods, to preserve the data.
Al-Siwi pointed out that the Authority requested support by providing the detection materials for analyzing DNA samples, but until this moment the Authority has not begun to assign the authorities to bring in the operating materials, according to his expression.
Al-Siwi explained that the materials available to the Authority were used in the analysis base of the genetic data sample, by completing more than 900 DNA of the victims’ families, stressing the Authority’s need for operating materials for bone samples to be taken from unidentified bodies and to expedite the analysis processes so that they can be matched with the genetic data base of the victims’ families.
Foreign nationality victims
Regarding the bodies of foreign victims, Al-Siwi said that this is done by communicating with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to inform them, and communicating with countries that have victims who were lost in the floods.
The Authority stated that the identification of the victims is being carried out in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to communicate with these countries to provide samples and take samples from their families in order to determine their identity within the Libyan state and issue DNA reports in this regard.
Al-Siwi stressed that the Authority does not consider any report of a missing person from any family except with a report at the Public Prosecution and recording the incident to open a missing person file with the Authority, in addition to other documents, whether proving the identity of the missing person, such as his personal data and the data of the individuals reporting the incident, and taking DNA samples from relatives and families of the victims and referring them to DNA laboratories.
Source: Libyan News Agency
2024-09-07 19:49:36