They searched for Argentina’s ‘disappeared’ – now they are helping to find Ukraine’s dead
The forensic team set up to uncover the fate of Argentina’s “disappeared” – victims of the nation’s former military dictatorship – has been dispatched to Ukraine to help with the identification of thousands of corpses.
From the minefields of the Donbas to the morgues of Bucha, bodies lie waiting to be excavated, analysed and named. Almost two years since the start of Russia’s invasion, and with a 1,000km-long frontline, the task of identifying Ukraine’s dead is huge.
Now the team set up in the wake of Argentina’s last brutal military dictatorship to find the disappeared – and which also identified the remains of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara – has stepped in to help.
“We’re talking about hundreds of bodies arriving at [Ukrainian] mortuaries every day,” said Dr Mercedes Salado Puerto, a director of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), in an exclusive interview with The Telegraph. “And bodies are still in the battlefields, not yet recovered.”
The exact figure of those missing in Ukraine remains unknown. Some estimates put it at more than 20,000, though some of those may be held in captivity.
“In every conflict, there is a silence in the number of victims. This is the secret of war,” said Dr Salado Puerto.
The EAAF was established in the wake of Argentina’s bloody 1976-83 military dictatorship, which kidnapped and executed an estimated 30,000 people.
Victims were drugged and thrown out of planes alive, others burned and buried in clandestine graves; remains were left scattered in ditches and cemeteries across the country.
As the country returned to democracy, and against a lingering climate of fear, a team of university students began to recover the bodies under the guidance of Clyde Snow, an American forensic anthropologist famous for identifying the remains of Josef Mengele.
Bones from the time of the dictatorship continue to be found – some following death-bed confessions – and fragments of skulls and vertebrae are still being pieced together in a Buenos Aires laboratory.
The Argentines have now taken their expertise to Ukraine, working under a programme set up by the International Committee of the Red Cross in 2015, following Russia’s invasion of Crimea.
They are training local military, police and forensic scientists in excavation and analysis, and helping to establish frameworks needed for the management of tens of thousands of bodies.
“Ukraine has a lot of capacity, there are fantastic pathologists, fantastic geneticists. But – like in all conflicts – the problem has become bigger than its ability to absorb,” said Dr Salado Puerto.
The team is well-versed in working in faraway places having identified bodies in more than 30 countries, including Iraq and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The work in Ukraine is crucial but dangerous, particularly in areas heavily mined or where fighting continues. “Some of the military and parts of the search groups have faced injuries, some people have died trying to recover bodies,” said Dr Salado Puerto.
Outside of key battle sites, forensic teams will review satellite photographs and changes in the ground and vegetation that may indicate the presence of a burial structure.
Once bodies are recovered in Ukraine, identification typically involves gathering antemortem data such as fractures and dental records, collecting biological samples from family members, and DNA analysis.
But with more than five million Ukrainians displaced, establishing contact with families for gathering vital DNA is difficult, as is creating one unified registry of the missing and coordinating between districts and forces.
“How to create this list and centralise the missing persons, the management of this information, is a challenge,” said Dr Salado Puerto.
The longer the deceased are left, the harder this work also becomes; skeletonised bodies will not have fingerprints and soft tissue is lost, while those buried in mass graves may be commingled.
“In some situations, bodies have been rotting for several days or weeks, making identification more difficult,” said Achille Després, a spokesperson for the ICRC in Ukraine. “They have died a violent death – these remains need to be carefully cared for.”
In a bid to speed up identification, as well as training Ukrainian specialists, the programme has also recruited forensic experts from across the world, including Colombia and South Africa.
“We have a lot of geographical scope to cover,” said Mr Després. “Where it gets tricky is that often the ‘enemies’ or ‘other side’ have bodies. We help authorities on all sides follow their obligations, and bring closure to a family who may think their son or husband is still alive.”