Identification of War Victims in Croatia

Abstract

The intention of this paper is to describe the organizational principles and indicate the results already achieved in the identification of war victims in Croatia. By 25 February 1993, 6, 493 victims had been identified. A model is proposed that could be used in the course of identification processes, examining the methods and principles of identification which have been complicated by the time interval of more than a year from the time of death, for a presumed number of several thousand (up to 14, 000) unidentified victims, possibly in mass graves. Identification is further complicated by the lack of ante-mortem medical and dental records and the incapacity to utilize more expensive methods of identification. Attention is drawn to a group of more complex cases examined at the Institute of Forensic Medicine and Criminology.