STICHTING
PLATFORM FOR
TRANSNATIONAL FORENSIC ASSISTANCE
IDENTIFYING THE DISPLACED PROJECT July '21 - July '22
The project
​
The project is funded by an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Impact Acceleration Award awarded to Dr Maria Maclennan at the University of Edinburgh. The project is a collaboration between Dr Maclennan, forensic pathologist Professor Pavlos Pavlidis based at the Laboratory of Forensic Sciences of Democritus University of Thrace in Alexandroupolis and Dr Jan Bikker of the Forensic Missing Migrant Initiative. The project run from July 2021 until July 2022. The agreement has been extended and additional cases after 2022 will be added to the online catalogue.
EVROS
The Evros River (in Turkish: Meriç, in Bulgarian: Maritsa) is sometimes referred to as the 'River of Ghosts' due to the large number of migrants who are believed to have died in the river in an attempt to cross from Turkey or recently following alledged pushbacks. The Evros River acts as a natural boundary between Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria with a total length of 530 km, of which 204 km travels through Greece.
​
The “river of ghosts” keeps its secrets very well hidden in its cloudy waters, its muddy bottom and under tree trunks and loads of materials carried along its course from the Bulgarian Rila Mountains to the Thracian Sea where it completes its journey. Prof Pavlidis estimates that since 2000, about 1500 people have died in its frozen waters in and around the Evros region. This is based on estimates from the Greek side only. A similar number on the Turkish side is estimated to have died, but limited data is available and it is believed that many bodies have not been recovered.
​
THE FINAL JOURNEY
According to data published by Pavlidis and Karakasi (2019), drowning accounts to about half of migrant deaths autopsied in Evros since 2000. Hypothermia is the second cause of death accounting for 20% of cases. The latter is more common in the winter months when the temperatures in the region drop significantly. Multiple layers of clothing are commonly observed on the deceased, either to help protect from the cold or in previous years because smugglers did not allow migrants to take bags on the small boats crossing the river to save space. Landmine detonation injuries in the period 2000-2008 accounted for 15% of deaths. Traffic accidents (including railway incidents) and pathological causes account for roughly 5 while the cause of death could not be estalished (due to decomposition or skeletalisation) in 10% of cases. Only 30% of 334 cases in the period 2000-2014 have been identified. Updated data will be published in forthcoming publications.
PERSONAL EFFECTS AND ITS PLACE IN FORENSIC IDENTIFICATION
The recovery of human remains and the preservation of evidence/personal effects represent the first crucial steps in the victim identification process. All items found on the remains must be carefully documented throughout the handling stages. Chain of custody procedures must be in place to ensure that items can be traced back to the deceased at any time and returned to relatives if requested.
Personal effects are considered 'secondary identifiers'; they serve to support identification by other means and are normally not sufficient to be used as a sole means of identification and cannot be standalone to prove identity of the deceased. Secondary identifiers are often used to complement the primary identifiers such as DNA. They could provide investigative clues to the identity or origin of the deceased, a 'history' of their migratory journey or they may be recognised by relatives if the item is very personal and unique.
​
Personal items may be interchanged with people in group. Especially in the migration context, the limitations for the use of personal effects in the identification process must be carefully considered. Despite this, personal effects may provide some new additional investigative leads if other lines of inquiry have been exhausted.
Photo for illustration purposes
THE COLLECTION
Prof Pavlidis, a forensic pathologist, has autopsied and documented over close to 500 remains of migrants since 2000. He has meticulously recorded details of the post-mortem examination of these remains. For an estimated 117 victims of both identified and unidentified migrants he has stored 385+ personal items found on the bodies. Items of the identified migrants have not been collected by the relatives, however their identification provides details about the kind of items they carried and additional information such as country of origin, and the journey they took.
THE PROJECT
.png)
The project will utilise a multidisciplinary lens to explore the value of jewellery and personal effects as an aide in reconstructing fragmented migrant identities. Through compiling an online catalogue of personal property, the project will employ narrative and visual methods to recite the stories and experiences of missing migrants. Experts are invited to access the catalogue and provide new investigative forensic leads for example to infer a language or specific dialect, identification of Islamic or African jewellery and specific hallmarks. The human stories behind the personal items will be narrated and complimented with post-mortem case histories as well as contextual photos and videos of the circumstances of their death, where available.
​
The project will seek to collaborate with migrant communities, investigation authorities, academic researchers, jewellery experts, forensic practitioners, humanitarian organisation and NGO’s in Europe.
​
The catalogue is expected to be completed in August 2022
Impact Film
Filmed and Directed on location in Athens and Alexandroupolis in May 2022, we have been working with filmmaker Harry Lawson (Twitter: @harrylawsonnnnn) to create an 8-minute Impact Film which will launch in October 2022.
