Humanitarian cooperation with a view to identifying the victims of shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea was at the centre of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed today by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Elisabetta Belloni, and the Special Commissioner of the Italian Government for Missing Persons, Prefect Vittorio Piscitelli, at the Farnesina.
The MoU defines the ways the two institutions will cooperate in order to support the International Red Cross and the Italian Red Cross in acquiring personal data and/or biological samples that would allow for the identification of victims.
When contacting local Authorities, wherever possible and appropriate in order to guarantee the security of the victims’ family members, the diplomatic-consular Representations will circulate ad hoc information notices in the countries of origin of the victims. These contacts will help collect their ante mortem data, which will then be compared with post-mortem data provided by forensic police and by the team of forensic anthropologists and medical doctors of 13 universities, coordinated by Professor Cattaneao of the University of Milan.
The MoU will represent an example of “best practice” to be exported to the EU. It will also allow the enhancement of the Italian model of excellence in the humanitarian field, supporting peace, security and solidarity among people.
