Humanitarian cooperation for the identification of victims of shipwrecks in the Mediterranean is the topic of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Elisabetta Belloni, and the Extraordinary Government Commissioner for Missing Persons, Prefect Vittorio Piscitelli, signed today at the Farnesina.
The MoU defines the terms for cooperation between the two institutions, with the aim of supporting the International and the Italian Red Cross in the acquisition of personal data and/or biological samples, which will enable the recognition of the victims.
Following contacts with local authorities, the diplomatic and consular offices will disseminate in the countries of origin relevant information reports, whenever possible, seeking to guarantee the protection of relatives of the victims. Such contacts will enable the collection of ante-mortem data of the victims, which will subsequently be compared to post-mortem ones by forensic police and by a team physicians and forensic anthropologists from 13 universities, to be coordinated by Professor Cattaneo from the University of Milan.
The MoU will become a ‘best practice’ exported to other EU countries. It will strengthen an Italian excellence pattern in humanitarian aid, promoting peace, security and solidarity among peoples.
