Deputies outline approval of the creation of a national center for human identification

Enrique Mendez

Newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, April 26, 2022, p. 4

The Chamber of Deputies plans to approve this Tuesday in plenary session the creation of the national human identification center, once the joint Human Rights and Justice commissions unanimously approved the initiative of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

In the discussion, legislators highlighted that the forensic crisis due to the more than 50,000 unidentified corpses in the country has its origin in the fact that the taking of genetic samples is not systematized and that the information is fragmented and incomplete.

Deputies from Morena insisted that the crisis of disappearances and lack of identification of people is the responsibility of previous governments. Hamlet García Almaguer argued that the chamber is late in trying to resolve the problem, but that in any case it responds to the omission of other administrations.

Before, the deputy Claudia Delgadillo, from the PVEM, highlighted that in the forensic service of Jalisco, where she is from, there are hundreds of unidentified bodies. In this regard, García Almaguer said that since 2018 the entity has been experiencing the most serious forensic crisis in its history.

He cited that, in addition to the fact that 14 disappearances are registered every day in the state, that year saw “the horrific case of the ‘trailer of death,’ which was abandoned in Tlajomulco with more than 270 decomposing bodies.”

The deputies Elena Segura, from Morena, and the PRI member Sue Bernal highlighted that the new instance, which will depend on the National Search Commission of the Ministry of the Interior, requires a budget to fulfill its function.

The disappearance of people is one of the cruelest crimes. Not knowing where a family member or child is is a terrible cause of painsaid Segura, who called for a vote in favor of the initiative to guarantee the right to the truth and grant decent treatment to desperate people in search of their relatives.

However, he added, this center, without resources, will be a good intention. For it to work, it requires resources and only if we have them in the budget.

An analysis by Morena explained that the center will be focused on human identification and that its strategy will be the generalized search from a massive approach methodology or, where appropriate, a hybrid approach, for the correct forensic treatment of the bodies and human remains of people unidentified, found in common graves and clandestine burial graves.

He also specified that the center will not supply the responsibilities and legal obligations of the forensic services of the prosecutor’s offices, but rather that it will contribute to them, as one of its various functions.