JAKATA - Interpol has published Black Notices for the first time, as part of an international campaign to identify more than 20 women and children killed.
Named 'Operation Identify Me', this is a public call to identify 22 female victims, believed to have been killed in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, but their identities were never known.
The international crime agency has taken an unusual step by publicizing the Black Notice, whose access was previously only given to police forces, as they believe the victims have a global connection.
The victims were women and girls whose bodies were found in swamps, wells and rivers, with some deaths occurring more than 40 years ago.
The oldest case involved a girl, believed to be 13 years old, who was found in a parking lot by pedestrians in the Netherlands in 1976 and allegedly by police from Germany.
Another is a woman who was found in Belgium nearly 32 years ago. Her body was found in 1991 in a rainwater well in Holsbeek City, about 40 km from Brussels. Her body is thought to have been in a well for two years, according to police.
Francois-Xavier Laurent, Interpol's DNA database manager, told The National it could not rule out that 22 unsolved women and children's killings across Europe were unrelated.
"Looking at the context, they seem unrelated apart from that they are all women and all victims of crime. But we can never reject the hypothesis, some women are part of a human trafficking network," he said.
We are looking for names 🔑The names of 22 women, victims of murder. They are someone's friend, sister, cousin, daughter or mother. And they matter.Details: https://t.co/PrrSg3ahrg pic.twitter.com/vNXXcFAGu0
— INTERPOL (@INTERPOL_HQ) May 10, 2023
We are looking for names 🔑The names of 22 women, victims of murder. They are someone's friend, sister, cousin, daughter or mother. And they matter.Details: https://t.co/PrrSg3ahrg pic.twitter.com/vNXXcFAGu0
"We have launched this because each victim has the opportunity to be identified and the family knows what happens to their loved ones," he explained.
"The difficulty in these cases is that there are no names and no identity documents. The bodies are very degraded, and we cannot rule out that they are visitors to the country they were found in, and they could have come from other parts of the world," Laurent said.
"This campaign is the first, this is the first time Interpol has provided information from Black Notices, in the hope that the public can give us a potential tip to help solve the case," he said.
Facial reconstruction has been made for each victim as well as information about where and when they were found, personal items found in their bodies as well as clothing and jewelry.
Motive T-shirts, silver bracelets and rose tattoos are some of the images uploaded to Interpol's website and social media accounts.
Police fear the bodies may have been left in various countries "to obstruct criminal investigations".
"Every way we can think about solving this cold case has been explored," he said.
"Investigation has reached a stalemate and we hope public attention will allow us to advance it. We believe there may be an international context for this case," Laurent said.
Interpol believes some women may come from various regions in Eastern Europe.
"Mereka bisa saja perempuan yang memutuskan untuk melakukan perjalanan wisata, tapi juga berpotensi menjadi korban perdagangan manusia," ungkapnya.
"Because this is the first launch, we decided to keep it small, but it has proven successful and other states have asked us to help them too," Laurent hoped.
Meanwhile, Susan Hitchin, who coordinates Interpol's DNA unit, said identifying women could help bring their family members closer.
"It's been great to go years without any news, not knowing what's going on. And no matter how terrible it gets confirmation that their loved ones have died, it's part of an important process of mourning and moving forward," he said in a telephone interview.
"Hopefully members of the community can bring along some new elements that the police can use that will eventually provide the identities of these victims and ideally help lead to the perpetrators, if any," concluded Hitchin.
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