Interpol announced today that it is launching for the first time a campaign to help the general public identify the bodies of 22 women found over decades in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands and to advance investigations into these “frozen cases”. ».

The first body was found in a motorway parking lot in October of 1976 in the Netherlands and the most recent in a community park in August 2019 in Belgium, have not been able to be identified by national police services, “in part” because these women did not originate from the countries in question, according to the Interpol statement.

“It is possible that these bodies were left where they were found in order to make the forensic investigation difficult,” the international police cooperation organization also emphasizes in its statement.

In particular, Interpol will publish the her Intern siteyr and on its social media accounts selected information, which until now was for internal use and contained in its so-called “black ads”, dedicated to the identification of human bodies.

For each of the 22 victims, a photograph will also be released, based on facial reconstruction technologies, and details of the place and date the body was discovered, its personal effects, clothing and context.

“All scenarios for solving these ‘frozen cases’ have been considered. The investigations are at a standstill and we hope that the attention of the public will allow us to move forward,” Francois-Xavier Laurent, manager of the DNA databases at Interpol, explained to AFP.

“Family, friends, colleagues, who sometimes overnight never saw that person again,” could provide information, contribute “even a small clue.”

The identification of a body “has two goals: to identify that person and to notify the families and open investigations to find the suspects in case of murder,” adds Laurent.

These various files are “not related to each other”, but what they have in common is “their international context”, this official clarifies.

“Some of these women are believed to have come from regions of Eastern Europe,” the statement said. “These may be women who have decided to take a tourist trip, but also potential victims of human trafficking,” adds Laurent.

Called ‘Identify Me’, this first campaign can then be extended to other cases.