Robins, who traveled to the Greek
island of Lesbos for research during
the crisis, describes a similar situation
there. In the summer of 2015, at least
3,000 people were arriving on Lesbos
per day, and hundreds were dying each
day. Bodies were stacked in freezer con-
tainers. Graveyards ran out of space. An
Egyptian scholar with no experience
handling the dead volunteered for the
task of administering burial rites. There
were plenty of well- meaning people try-
ing to do the right thing, but because of a
shortage of forensic experience, crucial
evidence that would later enable the
bodies to be identified was lost.
Robins goes as far as calling the burial
sites “mass graves like something out of
Srebrenica— multiple bodies and human
remains.”
Because of the lack of records, no
one will even guess how many of the
23,000 estimated dead or missing are
buried in which European countries, or
how many have been identified. Even
that estimate of 23,000 may not be ac-
curate; it comes from deaths and miss-
ing persons reported by family members
and shipwreck survivors, and from bod-
ies actually retrieved and buried. Peo-
ple working in the field say the number
is likely much higher. Mirto says pre-
vious research done from 1990 to 2013
showed that around 27% of people be-
lieved to have been killed in migra-
tion were found and identified, but she
thinks that figure would
be lower now.
Today, thousands of
people likely remain at the
bottom of the sea, trapped
in the rotting wood of
the vessels they thought
would save them, their un-
derwater coffins prevent-
ing them from floating to
the surface. It is highly
unlikely any country will
cover the huge expense of
trawling the seabed.
And some people may still be alive.
Europol, the European Union’s law-
enforcement agency, estimates that
around 10,000 children have gone miss-
ing during migration, some left wait-
ing in refugee centers for parents who
may never come, others trafficked and
exploited.
Working out where all the records—
and the bodies—are is the ICMP’s first
task. But that is still only half of the pic-
ture. “Before you can identify bodies, you
need to identify families,” says Robins.
This is a huge challenge given the
global nature of migration. Bomberger
estimates that people are coming to Eu-
rope from 65 different countries. Many
relatives will remain in their home coun-
tries, while others scatter across Europe.
For one missing person, multiple govern-
ments must work together. In Murad’s
case, an ideal scenario would involvethe cooperation of Iraq so other family
members could give DNA samples; Tur-
key, the last country where his family
were seen alive; Greece, where the boat
was headed; and Germany, where Murad
is now living. But some governments—
Syria’s, for example—would simply not
cooperate, while others have no techni-
cal capacity.
Then there are ethnic and political
sensitivities. Murad is a member of the
Yezidi community—he fled Iraq when
Islamic State fighters came to his home-
town, killing hundreds of men and kid-
napping thousands of women and chil-
dren. Among his people, there remains
distrust in a government they feel did not
do enough to protect them. Gathering
data from families of the missing across
the world would involve a huge outreach
campaign, ideally accompanied by psy-
chological support.
Bomberger is frank
about the challenges
ahead. She is motivated to
keep going by the desper-
ate families she meets, and
because she believes the
task is an important one,
not just from a moral and
legal perspective but also
to prevent future cycles of
violence and resentment.
It has helped heal wounds
in the former Yugoslavia,
and Bomberger is confi-
dent it will do the same for Europe’s ref-
ugee community.
“Twenty years ago, when we started
this whole process in the former Yugo-
slavia, everyone said it couldn’t be done,”
says Bomberger. “Nothing is impossible.
You have to try, because it’s not going to
go away, and I think we can help build
the mechanisms to find people. It is not
insurmountable.”
But it will take time. So Murad waits,
reliving the last moments he saw his
children as he buttoned up their small
life jackets and promised them a new
life: “We just put the vests on and then
we said, ‘We put our fate in the hands of
God— happiness is waiting for us at the
other end.’ ”
A few hours later, they were swallowed
by the waves, where they probably still
remain, frozen in time at the bottom of
the sea. ^
The view from the living- room
window of Murad’s house,
overlooking a street in Theley