OVERALL IDENTIFICATION PROCESS

 The overall process followed by JPAC involves:

1. ANALYSIS.
2. IN-COUNTRY FIELD INVESTIGATION .
3. RECOVERY OPERATIONS.
4 IDENTIFICATION.

5. CLOSURE.


Go to
the JPAC site to get it from the horse's mouth.

The FRS provided by families forms part of the evidence related to the individual who is unaccounted for.

 

Individual Case Work. By way of explanation, after looking at the above-mentioned JPAC reference, my understanding of the way that CILHI approach the identification process is as follows:

1.      When remains are recovered, the forensic experts at CILHI produce a "biological profile" of the deceased by examining the remains etc.

2.      Attempts are then made to match this profile back to persons not accounted for

3.      The mtDNA profile derived from the FRS supplied by the families is used as one of the tools to assist in this matching process. 

What I am trying to explain here is that various  FRS are called forward for matching against recoveries that have been made, as opposed to a family's FRS being matched against all accessions held at CILHI. Therefore it takes time to get anything like a final answer. In any case, since remains will probably continue to be recovered from Vietnam for some years to come, a FRS may be called forward to check against future recoveries if the associated evidence justifies this being done.

 

 


This page was last updated on 19 November 2003.