CMP Press Release 10 July 2012
Release Date: Jul 10, 2012
Press Release
Nicosia, 10 July 2012 – The three members of the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP) met today with the representatives of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot organizations of families of missing persons.
The CMP members informed them that the contract between UNDP/CMP and the ICMP had been signed earlier in the day and that missing persons) would be delivered within the coming days to the ICMP genetic laboratory in Sarajevo for DNA testing. At the same time, CMP scientists will visit the ICMP to fine tune the procedures.
The ICMP genetic laboratory will start processing the samples while the CMP continues its efforts to secure copies of both the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot Family Reference Sample Databases (FRSD) from the CING in order to code them and provide a copy to the ICMP. Another copy of both FRSDs will also be kept at the CMP Anthropological Laboratory for cross-checking, since the final identifications of the missing persons will be done in Cyprus by a bi-communal team of Cypriot anthropologists and geneticists at the CMP Laboratory.
The CMP is glad to announce this fresh start of the CMP Project on the Exhumation, Identification and Return of Remains of Missing Persons in Cyprus, which is being carried out according to internationally-recognized best practices for the identification of victims of mass disasters and aims at minimizing the risk of mistakes to the utmost extent possible.