Missing people, migrants, identification and human rights

2016

 Create an independent humanitarian commission to oversee and coordinate a national response to the crisis of missing migrants in Greece;  Improve existing practices around data collection and management both from bodies and witnesses, and emphasise the importance of ante-mortem data;  Acknowledge state obligations under International Human Rights Law and uphold legal duties;  Respect families’ needs, and engage families so that they are at the centre of the issue;  Seek additional resources to address the problem, including from the EU;  Begin to create a global architecture to address the phenomenon of missing migrants, including a set of principles that can serve as the basis for protocols around transnational data sharing. Mediterranean Missing

2016

The Mediterranean Missing research project has sought to understand both the impact on families of having a relative missing in migration, and the law, policy and practice around the identification of bodies of dead migrants in Italy and Greece. Interviews with families of missing migrants from five countries confirmed the huge impact of not knowing the fate of loved ones, with families tortured by ambiguity and suffering a range of emotional and psychological consequences. In Lesbos, Greece, and Sicily, Italy, interviews with authorities, civil society and others confirm the presence of a policy vacuum around the issue of the missing, despite the duties on states imposed by human rights law. Investigation of deaths is inadequate, with effective post-mortem data collection and management challenged by the huge numbers of migrants , in some cases sufficiently to compromise future identification. In both Greece and Italy, response is characterised by a policy vacuum, with a large numb...

MONUMENTA SREBRENICA - Research, documents, testimonials, 2021

The aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was carried out with well-thought-out planning, preparation and execution of crimes. This was followed by concealment of the crimes committed, followed by a precisely elaborated denial process. It is the concealment of crimes that results in a large number of forcibly missing persons. The aim of concealment and denial is to prevent prosecution for committed crimes (without a body there are no crimes), and then to avoid adequate sanctions provided by international and national legislation against perpetrators. Special emphasis should be placed on the specificity of this form of crime, especially characteristic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where forcibly missing persons were mostly found in mass graves in a hidden locality. This is important to emphasize given the fact that a large number of people are still being searched for while the sites of the tombs containing the remains are a well-kept secret. Numerous families have not yet, in the third decade after the end of the aggression, exercised their basic humanitarian right to know the truth about the fate of their loved ones and to bury the remains in an appropriate manner. The total number of registered forcibly missing persons during the aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina is about 32,000. About 7,546 more people are wanted. With this in mind, it can be stated that the issue of enforced disappearances has not yet been resolved, and that it significantly burdens relations in the region. Participants in armed conflicts - states created by the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - are still looking for ways to improve the process of searching for the missing. Due to the social significance of this issue, which still problematizes and burdens relations in the country and the region, it is important to look at the new trends established in the new circumstances and frameworks, which search for the still large number of forcibly missing persons.

Border Deaths, 2019

While the term missing refers to various instances and practices, we focus on the bodies of deceased migrants that remain unidentified, and on the inability of families to mourn someone when there is no body to grieve for. We deploy some ethnographic fragments of how Italian communities sometimes mourn those who are buried without a name and we describe the many problems of mourning someone whose fate is unknown through a discussion of the notion of 'ambiguous loss'. Our contribution articulates some of the politics around deaths in migration by considering how missing migrants and their bodies are mourned in multiplicity.

Practicing Anthropology, 2018

For decades, migrants have continued to die or go missing in the Mediterranean, while the European Union and Italy continue to exhibit a policy vacuum around the issue of the missing, despite the duties on states imposed by human rights law. The investigation of deaths is inadequate, the Italian judicial authorities demonstrate disinterest to proceed with investigations in the identification of deceased migrants, and the inefficient post-mortem data collection seriously compromise every effort to restore names and dignity to the dead. This attitude seems to confirm the theory of “necropolitics,” which views the state as a racist and excluding sovereign entity. But ethnographic analysis of the work of some of the involved actors reveals recognition of the deceased and missing migrants based on a sense of familiarity and closeness. Here, the experience of the Mediterranean Missing Project is discussed, with an emphasis on future work prospects for both academia and practitioners.

The Mediterranean Missing research project has sought to understand both the impact on families of having a relative missing in migration, and the law, policy and practice around the identification of bodies of dead migrants in Italy and Greece. Interviews with families of missing migrants from five countries confirmed the huge impact of not knowing the fate of loved ones, with families tortured by ambiguity and suffering a range of emotional and psychological consequences. In Lesbos, Greece, and Sicily, Italy, interviews with authorities, civil society and others confirm the presence of a policy vacuum around the issue of the missing, despite the duties on states imposed by human rights law. Investigation of deaths is inadequate, with effective post-mortem data collection and management challenged by the huge numbers of migrants, in some cases sufficiently to compromise future identification. In both Greece and Italy, response is characterised by a policy vacuum, with a large number of agencies with overlapping mandates lacking coordination. Whilst in Italy a dedicated Commission and its partners have demonstrated what can be done with appropriate resources, there is a need to ensure that all the dead benefit from such an approach. A constraint in both contexts remains the lack of outreach to families of the missing, who can provide ante-mortem data to enable identification, and who should anyway be at the centre of all efforts to address the issue and identify the dead.

2000

The staff of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) is attempting to undertake the largest mass hu- man identification effort in history. Through the generosity of numerous governmental and private corporations the ICMP has established or is currently establishing a strong network of political allies, family outreach centers, and DNA laboratories throughout the former Yugoslavia. Furthermore, the ICMP is

In this chapter we consider the afterlife of the remains of unidentified migrants who have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Albania and North Africa to Italy. Drawing on insights from long-term, multi-sited field research, we outline paths taken by human remains and consider their multiple agencies and distributed personhood through the relational modalities with which they are symbolically and materially engaged at different scales of significance. The rising number of migrant deaths related to international crossings worldwide, especially in the Mediterranean, has stimulated a large body of scholarship, which generally

Revue Internationale de la Croix- …, 2002

Forensic expertise in human rights investigations serves four purposes. On a humanitarian level, the aim is to help families uncover the fate of their loved ones. The investigation also serves as documentation to set the historical record straight. The purpose is furthermore to uncover legally admissible evidence that will result in the conviction of those responsible for the crime. Ultimately it is hoped that such investigations will deter future violations by demonstrating through forensic documentation and litigation that those responsible will be held accountable for their actions." 1 The structures to protect the neutrality and impartiality that forensic scientists take for granted in their domestic contexts do not exist in the context of identifying missing persons. Furthermore, biomedical ethics, despite the explosion in its literature in recent decades, has generally had little to say about rights and obligations with regard to human remains. Finally, technical standards which could be applied to the context of missing persons either do not exist, or need to be adapted. This article traces the background of the role of forensic science in identifying missing persons and outlines some recommendations for developing standards and best practice guidelines with a view to fulfilling the objectives both of families of the missing and the evidentiary needs of tribunals.

Citizenship Studies, 2019

The Mediterranean Sea has become an iconic site in the so-called migration crisis. Thousands of dead bodies have washed up on the southern beaches of Europe. We draw on ethnographic material collected at sites in Italy where the bodies of drowned migrants have been cared for by professionals and volunteers. We argue that while caring for the dead allows them to be identified as persons, it also produces relationships that go beyond formal citizenship. We introduce the notion of forensic care work to analyse the practice of identification and show how it produces a relational citizenship. We follow the movement of bodies from where they are found to examination and burial. We show that this process involves constant tinkering and experimenting with in this specific forensic practice and argue that caring for the dead requires caring for the forensic infrastructure.