Some procedures for the identification bodies from mass graves

Abstract

Mass graves which consist of bodies of people who died in war crimes are not part of human sufferings in modern history nor are they specific for human misfortune nowadays. However, the achievements of the current technology in the mass cemetery discovery and the impossibility of their complete concealment from media and global judgment of public opinion make them particularly important for war events in the contemporary world. The article gives a brief review of the identification method which will increase the success of identification and will satisfy its basic aim by mutual completion: to respect the deceased and a way to return respect to their families, which supports the human rights protection of both the deceased and the alive. The identification procedure consists of: collecting antemortem data, taking photographs of the body, the description of clothes and body belongings, court-medical autopsy, body display, dactyloscopy, taking material for laboratory analysis, the DNA analysis.