How the gendarmes try to identify the victims of the shipwreck

• Twenty-seven migrants died in the North Sea trying to reach Britain.

  The investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor's office aims in particular to identify the victims.

• It was entrusted to the experts of the Gendarmerie Unit for the Identification of Disaster Victims (UGIVC), a unit created almost 30 years ago, after the air disaster at Mont Saint-Odile.

• Colonel Franck Marescal, director of the IRCGN (Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie) on which this unit depends, details at

  20 minutes

  how the members of this unit work.

Put names on faces damaged by the waves.

This is the delicate mission which was entrusted by the Paris prosecutor's office to the experts of the Gendarmerie Unit for the Identification of Disaster Victims [UGIVC].

These seasoned gendarmes are busy identifying the 27 migrants who were killed at the end of November in the sinking of their boat in the North Sea while trying to reach Great Britain.

Colonel Franck Marescal, director of the IRCGN (Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie), explains to

how the members of this unit created after the crash of an Airbus A320 on Mont Sainte-Odile in 1992 work.

What is the specificity of this unit which was seized by the Paris prosecutor's office to identify the victims of the shipwreck?

The IRCGN is a multidisciplinary laboratory which brings together many experts in all fields of forensic science: 240 scientists, 67 activities.

Among them, there is that which makes it possible to formally identify victims following a disaster or drowning as is the case in this case.

We are systematically called by the magistrates because we need high-level experts, who are used to the process put in place.

Since its creation 30 years ago, the unit has carried out 120 missions.

We intervened in particular in Nepal for the three missing mountaineers, and last year in Lebanon to help identify Franco-Lebanese after the explosion in Beirut.

How do the gendarmes proceed to identify the victims?

The principle is that to identify a person, one needs one of the following three primary elements: either DNA, or fingerprints, or dental information - this is called odontology.

These are called 

.

We will then have to make a link with the information that we will collect from the families, these are the so-called

Concretely, how do these experts work?

A team is formed according to the problem and the number of victims.

It is made up of experts in DNA, fingerprints and dentistry, but also photographers, criminal investigation technicians, logisticians… We leave with equipment such as our DNA lab, a mobile projectable laboratory.

We always try to work as quickly as possible.

This time, the

team worked in the premises of the Lille IML [forensic institute], so we didn't have any logistical concerns.

In total, 22 people worked for two days to collect all the data on the 27 bodies that will allow them to be identified.

At the same time, an

team is being set up

to collect information from the families of the victims that will allow identification.

When it comes to a plane crash, we have the list of passengers, we can easily get closer to relatives.

But there, there is no list.

So we launched an appeal to families through associations, the Red Cross… Many people contacted us because they feared that a member of their family was on the boat which sank.

What are you asking them?

We ask them all the useful questions to put together a file.

Maybe she has some identity documents that will allow us to get the person's fingerprints.

DNA can also be taken from a mother, brother or sister.

It will allow us to make a connection with the deceased.

We also try to obtain any information that will help us with the identification, such as particular characteristics of the person: his size, age, scars, has he been operated on for anything, photographs ...

Who, in the end, formally identifies the victim?

It is not us.

We are simply providing technical elements.

We create

and

files

.

It is a reconciliation commission, gathered around a magistrate, with our experts, investigators, who will judge whether there are enough relevant elements to make a link between these files.

In this case, it still has not taken place.

Lille

Shipwreck in the North Sea: A call for witnesses from the Paris prosecutor's office to identify the victims

Society

Shipwreck of migrants: "It is 30 years of ever more secure policies which are brought to light by this tragedy", explains Manon Fillonneau

• Society

• Gendarmerie

• Britain

• Migrants

• Immigration

• Shipwreck

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