Preliminary results of the genetic identifications of the Lampedusa 2013 shipwreck victims

In the last years, the migration flow across the Mediterranean Sea increased rapidly. More than 20,000 persons, included young men, women and children, died trying to reach the European coasts, 60% of which remained with no identity. In this scenario, forensic genetics can give a support to the positive identification of the victims. To this aim, the DNA extracted from the victims is analysed and compared to reference samples supplied by relatives, in order to find out familiar relationships. In collaboration with LABANOF, University of Milan, our laboratory is trying to set up a genetic and statistic approach suitable for victim identification of the migrants died during the shipwreck occurred near the Lampedusa island, in October 3rd, 2013. The genetic profiles of the 363 victims, collected by the Forensic Genetics Lab of the Scientific Police Service (Palermo, Italy), were initially compared among them and subsequently between victims and subsequently with the reference samples, using the software Familias3, setting up the DVI interface. The statistical approach identified four familiar groups among the victims, generally composed by a parent with two or more children, and five parent-child relationships. In addition, 20 matches were detected between the subjects seeking a relative and 17 victims, with a positive statistical support. Some critical points emerged during the analyses among which the most important were the number of relatives and genetic markers needed to reach a statistical support to identification, the lack of genetic information about the populations to which the victims belonged and the option to use lineage markers such as Y-chromosome and mtDNA polymorphisms. In conclusion, these results support the reliability of the approach and highlight the importance to collaborate with other forensic experts in order to achieve positive identifications of the bodies.