A forensic perspective on the new disappeared: Migration revisited

Abstract

The term disappearance has been traditionally associated with a form of state repression used in many countries and in many political situations, whereby individuals fall through the cracks of a system and are, for the most part, never seen by their families again1. With no sign that an individual is alive yet with no body to confirm their death, the families of the disappeared are left in limbo. The high mortality rate of migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea, leaves the families of migrants who are missing in a similar predicament. There are two extraordinary challenges posed by this new group of disappeared. Firstly, the incidence of persons reported missing by their families is far greater than individuals and/or human remains found. In fact, current estimates point to two to three times more individuals being reported missing than remains found. Secondly, States within Europe and Africa currently house a large number of unidentified remains but have no way of moving forward with identifications given the lack of hypotheses of identity on the recovered individuals. Given the great variability in the various aspects of migration to Europe, including long periods of travel time from origin to destination, large geographical areas, diverse nationalities and multiple migratory routes, identifying these individuals and locating their families can be not only arduous, and heavily time and resource dependent, but also in many cases, unsuccessful.