FA few years ago, the remains of a toddler encased in a life jacket and navy snowsuit washed up on a beach in southern Norway, having spent the previous two months being transported by the currents of the North Sea. Although his face was barely recognizable, publicity surrounding the sinking of the migrant boat he was traveling on and suspicion over his identity allowed Norwegian police to locate a relative to whom his DNA could be associated, thus providing a name to this solitary corpse: Artin Iran Nezhad.
Others remain anonymous. Among the tens of thousands of people who die trying to reach Europe, less than a quarter are formally identified. For their loved ones, this lack of closure is a permanent trauma. However, a recently established network of forensic pathologists is trying to change this, developing new technologies and processes to aid identification efforts.
Launched in November last year, Migrant Disaster Victim Identification Action (MDVI) brings together experts from across Europe to respond to what its president, Professor Caroline Wilkinson of Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), describes as a growing humanitarian crisis of unidentified deceased migrants in Europe.
“It is estimated that at least 25,000 people have died in the last ten years crossing the Mediterranean alone, and that doesn’t even count those who die on land or other routes,” Wilkinson said. “Only (about) 25% of them are formally identified – and those are only the ones where the bodies were found. There will be thousands of other bodies that will never have been found during these migratory disasters.”
Although there is no official record of the number of people who died attempting to cross the Channel, a recent report by openDemocracy estimates that there have been at least 391 deaths between 1999 and 2023, while the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) has already proclaimed 2024 the deadliest year on record, with at least 57 chain deaths occurred between January and October.
However, these figures are only a “minimum estimate, particularly because during overseas crossings there is a very high probability that the boats will disappear”, said Julia Black, of the IOM. Missing Migrants Project. “If they disappear without a trace, really the only people who know they are missing are the families.”
Although it is relatively rare for bodies to wash up on British shores, “it does sometimes happen, and the French authorities have also had their fair share,” said Superintendent Jon Marsden, national co-ordinator of the identification of disaster victims in the United Kingdom. “If you are near the event you will hopefully be able to recover an intact body, but if time passes you may be left with body parts or skeletal remains that need to be identified and repatriated, when possible. It is very stimulating, very difficult, very complicated work.
One problem is that, unlike in other disasters, people often do not carry passports or other identification documents that could provide investigators with strong clues to their identity. Another reason is the reluctance of friends or family members to approach authorities in countries where they suspect their loved one is missing, as they desperately seek information about them.
Research commissioned by the IOM found that existing frameworks for dealing with missing persons claims in the UK were not inclusive enough to meet the needs of these families. Interviews with UK-based people who were searching for a missing person on their way to the UK suggest that fear over their own immigration status was another common factor.
“I was really struck by one interviewee who said, ‘You can’t really look for anyone else when you have to hide,'” Black said.
Until recently, countries have been reluctant to treat migrant deaths as disaster victim identification (DVI) incidents, meaning some forensic protocols may not be followed and data collection optimal may not take place. “If it is a DVI incident, countries can also request assistance from Interpol and other member countries, which leads to more potential resources,” Wilkinson said. “If it is not a DVI incident, the investigation can often be considered criminal, with negative implications for survivors, support groups or victims’ families. »
However, over the past two years, discussions on migrants within Interpol’s DVI working group have intensified. According to Marsden, its vice president, their main goal is to create connections and support programs like Wilkinson’s.
MDVI Action primarily aims to strengthen Europe’s capacity to deal with the thousands of deaths at its borders, by establishing research collaborations and increasing the number of people with the expertise to assist with these identifications.
One of its initiatives explores the use of “secondary identifiers,” such as a person’s facial features, birthmarks, tattoos or piercings, as a legal means of identification. Although these characteristics are used informally, dental records, DNA, and fingerprints are currently the only legally accepted identifiers. Yet distrust of authorities means family members may be reluctant to provide DNA samples for comparison with unidentified human remains, while the missing person’s fingerprints and dental records may not exist.
Photographs of the missing person – perhaps even taken during their trip – that they have posted on social media are often more easily accessible. In August, Wilkinson and colleagues published a study in which post-mortem images of 29 identified deceased migrants were compared to an archive of images taken when these individuals were alive. Following a protocol they had previously developed, the researchers looked at different areas of the face to see if they could match deceased individuals to the correct living person. The overall accuracy rate was 85%.
Another collaboration emerging from the MDVI initiative is the development of portable scanners that first responders or charity workers could use to record the characteristics of deceased migrants, before further decomposition sets in, increasing the chances of a successful identification. “The magic of 3D is that once the image is captured, you can change the angles, the lighting and introduce various artifacts that can make the face more recognizable to someone who knows the person, whereas ‘a 2D photograph (of the deceased) might be more recognizable. it’s more of a struggle, said Dr. Frédéric Bezombes of LJMU, who is developing the scanners.
Other recently developed technologies could be deployed to aid the recovery of those who die at sea. Speaking at MDVI Action’s first annual conference in September, Dr Tomasz Dabrowski of the Marine Institute in Galway, Ireland, described the software he had developed that combined forecasts of ocean currents with models of the behavior of various types of particles in the presence or absence of wind, to predict where bodies or living survivors of maritime accidents were likely to run aground. Irish authorities are already using it to facilitate their investigations.
Dabrowski said: “Previously, it would have been necessary to ask a local expert who knows the behavior of tides and ocean currents and interacts with wind and atmospheric pressure in a particular location to predict the most likely trajectory of a boat or of a missing person. »
Although this technology is not funded by the MDVI project and is not yet applied to migrant search and rescue operations in the United Kingdom or France, Dabrowski said it has this potential because the model covers the the west of Scotland, the Irish Sea, the English Channel and the French Atlantic Coast.
Research into such methods is only just beginning, and more will be needed to establish their validity, but the moral case for naming the thousands who perish trying to reach Europe or the United Kingdom are huge.
“This work is ultimately about the people who are left behind. They can’t grieve properly until they get the answers they deserve about their loved one,” Marsden said. “No matter how big a share they get, it’s really important that they do it. That’s why we’re doing this work, so we can help them close this chapter and allow them, one way or another, to move forward.