CA22106 - Migrant Disaster Victim Identification (MDVI)

Illegal immigration is currently a global problem and economic migration is a critical issue for many European countries. Many thousands of migrants reach the end of their lives attempting to cross bodies of water and inhospitable land masses between continents/countries. The European Commissioner for Human Rights (2007) argued that it was imperative to begin a process to identify and account for the thousands of ‘missing’ undocumented migrants whose identities are unknown. However, despite the frequency and magnitude of these tragedies over the last ten years, European governments have been slow to recognise the rights of families to know the fate of missing migrant relatives. It is, therefore, an international moral necessity to try to identify each person for family/legal matters, and this is especially challenging where the country of origin is poor or war-torn, where identification details are absent and migration is undocumented and unmonitored. This is a global humanitarian crisis.

Current migrant identification processes are inadequate and under-funded – only 22% of deceased migrants are ever identified. This is partly caused by a lack of communication between countries of origin and arrival and relevant stakeholders – policy makers, forensic practitioners, humanitarian groups, and government bodies – whereby advances in identification technologies have not delivered their full potential in this field. In this Action, interdisciplinary research and coordinated initiatives (meetings, training schools, short term scientific missions and online resources) will drive the development and validation of international processes and resources, including the utilisation of innovative craniofacial, drone and social media methods.