GFC Launches Independent, Citizen DNA Databank for Searching for Mexico's Disappeared Fernando Camacho Servin - Mexico Voices
go to original March 22, 2015

Relatives of 43 missing students in Mexico give their blood to build a DNA bank to try and find their loved ones, who went missing in September. (NTDTV)

Sunday, the Citizen Forensic Governance (GFC) organization began taking the first DNA samples from relatives of disappeared persons. These DNA samples will be used to compile a biobank of data independent from the Mexican government and whose purpose is to provide victims with the technological tools to continue searching for their loved ones.

As reported in these pages (La Jornada, 3/9/15), in 2012 Mexican researchers Ernesto Schwartz and Arely Cruz Santiago from the University of Durham, England, proposed creating a database of DNA from relatives of persons disappeared in the country. The idea is that citizens can pressure the authorities and force them to analyze the remains found in several mass graves to see if they match their family member.

The project, which is funded by the Council of Economic and Social Research in Great Britain after [the project] won the Transformative Action Research Award, aims to involve victims in the process of searching for their family members by giving them the tools so they might participate in investigations with the government, thus making transparent a process that is normally hermetically sealed.

Rodolfo Franco, a member of GFC, said that today they will take 50 samples related to 24 cases of disappearance, all recent developments in the state of Guerrero. Some of these could be from relatives of the Ayotzinapa students, but it isn't possible to know for sure because records of the persons involved are confidential.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico — on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx.

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!