Bosnia-based lab to help Chile identify 'dirty war' victims

[Judi Lynn]

Source: International Herald Tribune/Associated Press

Bosnia-based lab to help Chile identify 'dirty war' victims
The Associated Press
Published: June 16, 2008

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina: A Bosnian-based lab set up to identify people missing from wars in the former Yugoslavia is helping Chile identify victims of disappearances during the South American country's "dirty war" on dissidents in the 1970s, officials said Monday.

Chile and the International Commission on Missing Persons signed an agreement and the first 43 bone samples and 73 reference samples have arrived in Sarajevo for testing, the ICMP's Bosnia-based lab said in a statement.

"This is a very important agreement for us," said Dr. Gloria Ramirez-Donoso, of the Chilean Justice Ministry's Legal Medical Services. "ICMP has opened a real opportunity for us to achieve justice in our cases."

She added that the bone samples delivered for analysis to the lab came from a burial site at Calama, a desert region in northern Chile.

According to an official report written after civilian rule was restored in Chile in 1990, 3,197 people were killed for political reasons during Gen. Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship, including 1,197 "disappeared," who were later declared dead.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/06/16/europe/EU-GEN-Bosnia-Chile-Dirty-War.php

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Sarajevo-based lab to help identification of victims in Chile
Posted : Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:49:01 GMT
Author : DPA


Sarajevo - The Sarajevo-based International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) is to help Chilean authorities identify victims of disappearances during the 1970s, the commission said in a statement Monday. The commission on Sunday signed an agreement with the Chilean government on technical assistance to identify more than 3,000 people who are believed to have disappeared in Chile following the 1973 coup.

The commission also confirmed that the first 43 bone samples and 73 reference samples have arrived at ICMP's laboratories in Sarajevo for testing.

The bone samples delivered came from a burial site at Calama, a desert region in northern Chile, the statement said.

"This is very important agreement for us. ICMP has opened a real opportunity for us to achieve justice in our cases," said Dr. Gloria Ramirez-Donoso of the Human Rights Programme of the Chilean Justice Ministry's Legal Medical Services.

More:
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/212686,sarajevo-based-lab-to-help-identification-of-victims-in-chile.html