Mexico's Citizen Detectives Take Forensic Studies Into Their Own Hands Diana Ferrero - Al Jazeera
go to original November 21, 2014

The case of Mexico's 43 missing students has drawn attention to the thousands of others who have gone missing in the country, many of whom the government has done little to find. Authorities have failed to set up a basic workable database to keep track of forensic evidence, forcing families of the missing to launch a new online DNA database to help the search efforts. Al Jazeera's Adam Raney reports from Mexico City. (Al Jazeera)

MEXICO CITY — Nearly eight weeks since they disappeared in the hands of local police and drug gangs in Iguala in Guerrero state, the case of Mexico’s 43 missing students has entered a new stage, one of intense scrutiny of the remains found at several mass graves.

But victims’ families face no shortage of challenges.

“There is a total lack of forensic culture and expertise in Mexico,” said Arely Cruz, 28, a co-founder of the Ciencia Forense Ciudadana project, or Citizen-Led Forensics. She and research partner Ernesto Schwartz, 32 — both Mexican academics at Durham University in the U.K. — have teamed up with families of the disappeared to launch an independent Web registry that will allow citizens to report disappearances directly, without police involvement, and safely store all the information and evidence they collect.

As a security precaution, the case files will be stored at Durham University, a project sponsor, and DNA evidence will be analyzed in a forensic lab in Washington, D.C.

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