April 2, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 29, 1424

BANJA LUKA (Bosnia-Hercegovina): As the first victims of Bosnia’s 1995 Srebrenica massacre are finally laid to rest at a special cemetery this week, experts are using DNA to try to help thousands more families who still have no final word on missing relatives.

Tens of thousands of people went missing during the 1992-95 war which pitted ethnic Serbs against Muslims and Croats, and experts working in three laboratories are still developing DNA profiles in an attempt to identify the thousands of remains that have been exhumed from mass graves across the Balkan country.

A laboratory in Banja Luka, situated in the city hospital, is working on DNA profiles using severely destroyed bones of victims, while another in Sarajevo is using better preserved bones.

A third laboratory in Tuzla is working on blood samples from relatives searching for their missing loved ones.

The laboratory in Tuzla has collected 40,676 blood samples, out of which some 31,000 DNA profiles have been made, while Sarajevo and Banja Luka’s laboratories have collected 10,329 bones samples and created nearly 6,200 DNA profiles.

When a likely match is found, an expert pathologist is called for final confirmation, before families are informed of the findings.—AFP