DNA tests: Srebrenica to Ground Zero

DNA techniques used in Bosnia are in use in New York

By the BBC's Nick Thorpe

Scientists in Bosnia have identified the first victims from the 1995 Srebrenica massacre using DNA - an important breakthrough which should lead to the identification of thousands of bodies exhumed from mass graves.

The procedures and software developed in Bosnia are already being used in New York to help identify victims from the attacks on the World Trade Centre.

Some 4,000 out of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys murdered by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995 have so far been exhumed. Their remains lie in body bags, often mixed up, awaiting identification.

The task of forensic scientists to disentangle and identify those remains using traditional techniques has been made harder by several attempts to move bodies to cover up the crime.

Relatives' DNA has been matched with bodies'

On Friday in the northern Bosnian town of Tuzla, the first five DNA profiles extracted from the bones of victims were put into a computer containing 400 profiles taken from the blood of living relatives who are still searching for the bodies of their sons and husbands.

The two which matched - one boy of 15, and another of 17 - were then confirmed by pathologists.

Search will accelerate

The names of the victims will not be made public until the families have been informed.

In all, 17,000 blood samples have already been taken, as have 87 bone samples - which are taken by a much slower and more difficult process.

But in the coming weeks, encouraged by Friday's success, scientists involved in the project, which is run by the Sarajevo-based International Commission for Missing Persons, expect to accelerate the search for matches.

"We are delighted," said Gordon Bacon, chief of staff at the ICMP in Sarajevo, who paid tribute to his DNA team led by US scientist Ed Huffine.

Thousands of victims

Thirteen Bosnians, two Americans and a Canadian have been working intensively since May on the project.

There is no euphoria, just the satisfaction that at last many relatives will be able to get back the remains of their loved ones

Gordon Bacon
ICMP Chief of Staff

DNA techniques developed over the past 15 years have been used to identify the dead from aeroplane crashes, but never before on this scale - to identify thousands of victims.

Of the 6,000 bodies exhumed in Bosnia so far, 4,000 were from Srebrenica.

In the former Yugoslavia as a whole, 30,000 to 40,000 people are believed to lie in mass graves. The majority are in Bosnia, but there are also thousands in Croatia, Serbia and Kosovo.

'No euphoria'

Earlier this year, mass graves of Albanians killed in Kosovo were found in the suburbs of Belgrade - adding to the war-crimes charges against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

As in Bosnia, Serbian forces are accused of moving bodies already buried once in order to try to destroy the evidence of mass killings. In Croatia, Serbs are among the victims found in mass graves after they were killed by Croatian forces in 1995.

The laboratory in Tuzla will become the centre for other DNA labs in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Zagreb and Belgrade.

"The task of finding all these people is only just beginning," Mr Bacon said. "There is no euphoria, just the satisfaction that at last many relatives will be able to get back the remains of their loved ones."

Ladder of coloured lights

At the ICMP lab in Sarajevo, new machines to sand and grind bones are expected any day. The new equipment and the growing expertise of Bosnian scientists - who are learning the techniques from their US and Canadian colleagues John Cruise and John Dovren - will speed up the process.

Many mass graves in Bosnia date back to 1992

Bone samples wait in a long line of 50-millilitre test tubes. Two-gram samples are taken from each and the DNA is extracted in a three-day process.

This is represented on a computer screen as a ladder of coloured lights - one ladder for each individual. Then, on a screen in Tuzla, these are compared with similar ladders of lights representing the blood from relatives.

Over the coming weeks, hundreds, and then thousands, of matches are expected.

Many hurdles

One complicating factor is the difficulty of finding remaining mass graves. Another is that many of the bodies have been buried for up to nine years - some of the worst massacres of civilians happened in the first year of the war, 1992.

In some cases, whole families were wiped out and there are no surviving relatives.

In others, the bones of those killed in woods have been scattered by the elements or by wild animals.

And even before the DNA identification process can start, the hard and often gruesome work of finding graves and exhuming bodies has to be carried out.

While still harrowing, compared to this, the process of using these techniques to identify the victims of the World Trade Center attacks may be more straightforward - DNA samples can even be taken from the toothbrushes of those who died there.