FOREIGN forensic experts assisting local authorities in identifying the remains of those who died in the MV Princess of the Stars disaster have set up a victim-identification management information center (Vimic) at the Cebu Port Authority compound in Cebu City.

The team of disaster victim identification (DVI) specialists and forensic experts were sent to Cebu City by the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) to assist local authorities in processing the remains of the victims recovered on seas off Sibuyan Island in Romblon, Masbate and Burias Island.

Interpol Secretary-General Ronald Noble is in the country to coordinate the operations of the forensic team, composed of Olaf Worbs, Torkjel Rygnestad and Andrea Klauser, from the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).

The Interpol team will work closely with forensic examiners of the National Police Crime Laboratory and the Department of Health in identifying the recovered remains.

Director General Avelino Razon Jr., National Police chief, met with Noble in Manila on Tuesday to discuss the participation of the Interpol forensic team in identifying the remains of the victims.

“We welcome the Interpol and its member-countries’ police services and DVI experts’ swift offer of assistance and arrival here to assess our needs,” Razon said.

He told Noble that the assistance of the foreign experts will hasten the process of retrieving and identifying the bodies of the victims.

Noble informed Razon that there is pressing need for more refrigerated containers and mobile forensic laboratories to preserve the bodies.

“There is only one goal—to ensure that the DVI teams and the police are able to work under the conditions that are conducive to the accurate and efficient identification of the many victims of this tragedy, and we will draw on all of our resources to achieve that goal,” Noble said.

The Interpol forensic team previously worked on the identification of some 3,500 decomposed remains of tsunami victims in Thailand, Maldives and Sri Lanka.

The Vimic in Cebu City is awaiting the arrival of some 3,000 deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test kits provided by Interpol. The portable DNA test kits will require blood-stain samples to be extracted from next of kin relatives of the victims.

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Interpol forensic experts start identifying bodies

FOREIGN forensic experts assisting local authorities in identifying the remains of those who died in the MV Princess of the Stars disaster have set up a victim-identification management information center (Vimic) at the Cebu Port Authority compound in Cebu City.

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