The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) has presented Sarajevo University’s Faculty of Medicine with a comprehensive range of laboratory equipment which will improve capacity at the University’s Institute for Legal Medicine.
At the Faculty today, the Head of ICMP’s Western Balkans Program, Matthew Holliday, presented the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Prof. Dr. Semra Čavaljuga, with the accompanying documentation for the equipment, which includes a DNA sequencer, a sequencing computer, a mini centrifuge and software needed to make the equipment operational.
“One of the most important tasks of the Faculty of Medicine is to improve all our capacities. This equipment is of great importance as it is going to be used in our teaching process to gain new modern knowledge and broaden horizons. Students will have an opportunity to be acquainted with the innovative technologies in the field of genetics”, Professor Čavaljuga said.
Matthew Holliday stressed that in line with its global mandate, ICMP works with governments to develop institutional capacity to address the issue of missing persons efficiently and impartially. The current donation follows similar donations to the Federation Police Directorate in August this year, to the RS Institute of Legal Medicine in 2017, and to Sarajevo University’s Faculty of Natural Science in 2018. “One of ICMP’s goals it to strengthen technical forensic capacities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the equipment donated today will help achieve that goal,” Holliday said.
Holliday stressed that ICMP, with the support of its donors, the EU, Sweden, the UK and USAID, will continue to support the process of accounting for persons missing as a result of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, at the state level in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“This law-based and non-discriminatory process has already yielded remarkable results,” Holliday said. “Of the 31,000 persons who were registered as missing in 1995 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, more than 23,000 have been found with ICMP assistance.” He also stressed that ICMP will continue to assist authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to account for the remaining 8,000 who are still missing.
