Biro Alexandre, Ludes Bertrand, Delabarde Tania
UMR 8045 BABEL, CNRS Institut Médico-Légal de Paris, Paris, France.
Faculté de Santé, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France.
Forensic Sci Res. 2024 Aug 27;9(3):owae051. doi: 10.1093/fsr/owae051. eCollection 2024 Sep.
"I still don't realize that he's dead.... I cried over it. It makes me sad to know that he was buried unaccompanied on his last trip. We were all shocked." This testimony corresponds to a family whose relative was buried in an anonymous grave 6 months after his disappearance was reported to the police. It is estimated that between 1 000 and 3 000 unidentified bodies are buried in anonymous graves in France each year. Most of these decedents have passed through the medico-legal system. However the identification of these bodies, outside the context of mass disasters, remains a complex problem. Several national and international publications have highlighted the prevalent problem of unidentified burials and the consequences for families who do not know the fate of their loved ones, specifically, whether they are alive or deceased. This 6-year retrospective study (2018-2023), covering a total of 2 324 unidentified decedents admitted to the Institute of Medical-Legal Paris (IMLP), aimed to assess the impact of the identification protocol implemented in 2017 on the number of bodies that remain unidentified ( = 164). In addition, this study aimed to establish profiles for individuals who remained unidentified with the objective of identifying the factors that hinder their identification and developing correlated methods to address these issues. The results of this study were compared with other published studies to highlight the global problem and the ongoing need for collaboration between forensic practitioners and relevant authorities.
Despite great advances in human identification, unidentified decedents remain a global problem.This 6-year overview study covering a total of 2 324 unidentified bodies admitted to the IMLP provided relevant information about the unidentified decedent population and assessed the impact of a protocol established in 2017 on the rate of deceased buried without identity in Paris.The need to establish a national database in France to properly document and disseminate information on missing persons and to centralize the biological profile of unidentified bodies is key, as without antemortem information or a biometric database there can be no matching.
“我仍然没有意识到他已经去世……我为此哭泣。得知他在最后一程中无人陪伴下葬，这让我难过。我们都很震惊。”这段证词来自一个家庭，他们的亲属在向警方报告失踪6个月后被葬在一个无名墓穴中。据估计，法国每年有1000至3000具身份不明的尸体被葬在无名墓穴中。这些死者大多都经过了法医系统。然而，在大规模灾难之外，这些尸体的身份识别仍然是一个复杂的问题。一些国内和国际出版物强调了无名埋葬这一普遍问题以及对那些不知道亲人命运（特别是他们是活着还是已经去世）的家庭所造成的后果。这项为期6年的回顾性研究（2018 - 2023年）涵盖了总共2324名被送往巴黎法医研究所（IMLP）的身份不明的死者，旨在评估2017年实施的身份识别方案对仍未被识别的尸体数量（n = 164）的影响。此外，本研究旨在为身份不明的个体建立档案，以确定阻碍其身份识别的因素并开发相关方法来解决这些问题。本研究的结果与其他已发表的研究进行了比较，以突出这一全球性问题以及法医从业者与相关当局之间持续合作的必要性。
尽管在人类身份识别方面取得了巨大进展，但身份不明的死者仍然是一个全球性问题。这项为期6年的概述性研究涵盖了总共2324名被送往IMLP的身份不明的尸体，提供了有关身份不明死者群体的相关信息，并评估了2017年制定的一项方案对巴黎未确认身份埋葬率的影响。在法国建立一个国家数据库以妥善记录和传播失踪人员信息并集中身份不明尸体的生物特征档案至关重要，因为没有生前信息或生物特征数据库就无法进行比对。
