Turkey to build DNA databank for unknown bodies

Fevzi Kızılkoyun HÜRRİYET / ANKARA

The databank will also help to identify the bodies of victims discovered in mass graves over the past decade. DHA Photo

Turkey’s Justice and Interior Ministries have joined forces to build a DNA databank to keep track of unidentified dead bodies. The implementation will ease tracking missing persons and help their relatives avoid visiting morgues in each case of a body being found.

Some 1,350 people have been buried in mass graves over the past decade. Currently, unidentified bodies are buried after their DNA samples are taken. However, with the lack of a databank, the system faces large problems.

With the new facility, these records will be kept to be matched with the people who say their relatives are lost. In case of demand, the bank will keep matching their samples with the bodies found in the future and inform them in the case of a match.

A separate initiative is being carried out by the police to identify lost bodies, as it has developed a +18 website, where photographs of the faces of the found bodies are being displayed.