Bones of 70 Missing Persons Set for Sarajevo Tests

The bones of 70 people thought to be missing persons lost in the 1974 Turkish invasion and other conflicts in Cyprus' modern history will be sent to Sarajevo for testing at the ICMP genetic laboratory, said the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP).

The announcement comes in the wake of a recent controversy over whether genetic material should be sent abroad when Cyprus is home to the region's leading medical research centre Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics (CING).

The CMP's three committee members met with representatives of Greek-and-Turkish Cypriot families who lost relatives during the conflicts. The relatives were informed that the CMP and UNDP have signed a contract with the ICMP and that the Committee will continue its efforts to get genetic sample databases from CING, which strongly protested against the contractual change.

Final identifications are done in Cyprus by a bi-communal team of Cypriot anthropologists and geneticists at the CMP's laboratory.

Around 280 bone samples will be sent to the Sarajevo lab, said the CMP.

Message from CyprusNewsReport.com.  We can't do it without your help. Please support our independence so we can keep bringing you high-quality, free news from Cyprus and the region.

To make and read comments, become a full member of your news community, click here.