OUR Interpol announced today that it is launching for the first time a campaign asking the general public to help identify the bodies of 22 women that have been found over the decades in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands and advance the investigation of these “frozen cases”. “.

These bodies, the oldest of which were found in a car park in October 1976 in the Netherlands and the most recent in a public park in August 2019 in Belgium, were “partially” unidentified by the national police. because, according to the statement of Interpol, these women did not come from the countries in question.

“It is possible that these bodies were left where they were found in order to complicate the forensic investigation,” the international organization for police cooperation also emphasizes in a statement.

In particular, Interpol publishes on its website and social networks selected information that has so far been for internal use and contained in its so-called “black ads” dedicated to the identification of human remains.

The purpose of identification is twofold.

A photograph based on facial reconstruction technologies will also be released for each of the 22 victims, as well as information about the location and date of discovery of the body, its personal effects, clothing, and context.

“All scenarios for solving these “frozen cases” have been worked out. The investigation is on hold and we hope that public attention will allow us to move forward,” explained François-Xavier Laurent, DNA database manager at Interpol.

“Family, friends, colleagues who sometimes never saw the person again in one night” could provide information, give “even a little hint.”

The identification of the body “has two goals: to identify this person and notify the families and launch an investigation to find suspects in the case of a murder,” Laurent adds.

The various files are “unrelated to each other,” but they are united by an “international context,” the official clarifies.

“It is believed that some of these women came from regions of Eastern Europe,” the statement said. “They can be women who decide to make a tourist trip, as well as potential victims of human trafficking,” adds Laurent.

This first campaign, dubbed “Identify Me”, could then be expanded to other cases.

^{Source: APE-MEB, AFP.}