engleski

Results of the identification process of Homeland war victims found in the mass graves in Croatia

AIM According to the United Nations definition a mass grave contains three or more bodies of the victims. Our main goal was to describe characteristics of Homeland war mass graves and indicate the results of the identification process on the Department of Forensic Medicine and Criminology, Medical School, University of Zagreb from the 1995-2012. SUBJECTS AND METHODS We search our data base containing data about of all body remains which were examine on the Department of Forensic Medicine and Criminology, Medical School, University of Zagreb. In the period from the 1995-2012 we found 144 mass graves with totally 846 victims. Mass graves contains from 3 up to 200 body remains. They were located in the parts of Croatia which were involved in war conflict. RESULTS In this period the number of a mass graves discovered differ and in the year 2006 and in the period 2008 to 2011 there was no mass graves found. We observed that type of mass burial vary extremely – we found bodies buried at the different depth, bodies in the wells, in the septic tanks, limestone area caves, etc. The remains were sometimes commingled with animal remains. Generally spiking, the bodies were quite good preserved and whole body was present in 601 cases. Commingled remains were found 176 cases (21.2%). The cause of death or probable cause of death was established in 586 cases (69.3%), usually single or multiple gunshot wounds or explosive wounds. Finally we identified 648 persons (76.6%). Among these, most succumb in 1991 (94.8%). The victims were predominantly males (81.5%) and between 18 and 65 years (87%). CONCLUSION Mass graves were created mostly in 1991, during the strongest combats and war destructions in Croatia. They were created to quickly remove a large number of victims. Successful process of identification of mass grave victims demands close collaboration of specialists in forensic medicine, forensic anthropologists, forensic deontologists, forensic radiologists and molecular biologists. Just in this way it is possible to achieve the percentage of identification close to general identification percentage (about 80% for Croatia).

identification; mass graves; war victims

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