Bosnia-based body to help identify Katrina victims

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – A Sarajevo-based body which helped
identify victims of the 1990s Yugoslavia wars and last year’s
Asian tsunami said on Thursday said it would help identify
victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) said
it would analyze bone samples to obtain DNA profiles enabling
it to identify the bodies of those killed in the hurricane
which hit the southern United States in August, killing 1,228
people.

“Under an agreement between ICMP and the State of Louisiana
Department of Health and Hospitals, ICMP will test an estimated
260 to 350 bone samples to assist in identification of victims
of the August hurricane,” the Commission said in a statement.

“The DNA profiles will be returned to the Louisiana
authorities for matching with family members’ DNA profiles
there,” it added.

The Commission, set up by the international community in
1996 to help search for some 30,000 people missing from the
wars in former Yugoslavia, has developed a successful system of
large-scale DNA-led identification.

It has analyzed bone samples and matched their DNA with
that of relatives of the missing in the former Yugoslavia and
Asia, and helped identify the remains of 6,000 of the 12,500
Bosnian war dead who have been identified.

The ICMP said it had achieved a 100 percent success rate
with test samples sent from Louisiana state in November.

“Hurricane Katrina is a relatively recent disaster and in
this case the quantity of DNA is much higher than in older
bones so we are expecting to have a success rate of 100 percent
or close,” ICMP Chairman James Kimsey said.

The ICMP has identified the remains of almost 700 Asian
tsunami victims and is processing a further 1,000 cases.