Now, sophisticated DNA labs can help track down missing relatives

Hague, Oct 24: Now, sophisticated DNA tests would help people trace tehir loved ones who went missing in conflicts and disasters. State-of-the-art laboratories were unveiled in the Netherlands to help millions of families around the world through DNA tests.

It is the latest step for the non-governmental organisation the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), born out of the conflicts in former Yugoslavia and set up in 1996 in Sarajevo by then US president Bill Clinton. Having moved to The Hague last year, the organisation is completing the transition and relocating its labs from the Bosnian capital to the Dutch city where they will be equipped with cutting-edge technology.

"It's called massively parallel sequencing or next- generation sequencing," the head of the DNA lab, Rene Huel, told AFP.

"Basically what that is enabling us to do is increasing the amount of genetic data we can get from a sample."

The new technology, donated by the Dutch holding company Qiagen, enables scientists to better extract DNA from "even challenging bone samples. Ones that are decades old," Huel explained.

It also provides a huge number of genetic markers, meaning that even if family samples are from more distant relatives, such as a grandchild or even a third cousin, it is "possible that you will be able to conclusively ID somebody."

The extracted DNA is cross-referenced against ICMP's existing data base of about 100,000 samples from relatives to see if there is a match. The organisation has already succeeded in identifying some 70 per cent of the 40,000 people who went missing in the Balkans conflicts of the 1990s, including 90 per cent of the 8,000 killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. But over the past years it has been increasingly lending its expertise to other tragedies, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami or the devastating Hurricane Haiyan which hit the Philippines in November 2013.

Being able to "garner attention for this global challenge of missing persons ... and ensure that all governments recognise that there are thousands, if not millions of persons, missing around the world from conflicts, from human rights abuses, from natural disasters, from human trafficking ... is a huge step forward for us," the organisation's director general Kathryne Bomberger said.

PTI