The police authorities of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, in collaboration with Interpol, launched on Wednesday the campaign "Identify me" to try to identify the 22 bodies of women, all victims of violence, found between 1991 and last year and that they never knew how to identify.
Law enforcement agencies in all three countries have been working on a common project for months, believing that expanding investigations beyond the national framework can give them a better chance of success. "No one knows who they are, where they come from and why they were in Belgium, the Netherlands or Germany, in some cases many years ago. But they were all victims of violence."
What the 22 women have in common is that they died from violent acts. Their bodies were found burned, tortured, naked, submerged in water tanks or canals, often in a state of decomposition. But they all have something that could be used to identify them: striking fake nails, remains of clothing, tattoos or false teeth.
Belgium has spent years digging up people who were buried unidentified at a time when DNA testing was not done to try to identify them now. This is how he managed to discover last year that the body of a woman who had been buried without a name was that of a young woman who had disappeared in the Netherlands.
Actress Carice Van Houten is part of the campaign to try to identify the victims. AP Photo
The cases
The website dedicated to the campaign and launched by Interpol with the information available in the Belgian, Dutch and German police archives tries to give notoriety to these cases, some up to 40 years old and others as recent as the half-burned body that an older woman, walking, found in the Parc de Cointe, in the Belgian city of Liège.
She was a woman of African origin, between 35 and 45 years of age, who was still wearing a rebecca with buttons with the HCC emblem. She had been dead for at least two months and her body had been burned in that place although it is not known if she also died there or was moved there to be burned. In cases like this, the police can go as far as they can go is to make an approximate robot portrait from the facial remains. No one ever claimed it.
The campaign is supported by messages from famous women in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, such as Belgian singer Axelle Red, Dutch actress Carice Van Houten (the Melisandre of Game of Thrones), German sports journalism star Katrin Müller-Hohenstein, Belgian actress Veerle Baetens or Dutch rapper Stien (S10).
There will also be messages in the media and social networks to try to reach the largest possible audience, that someone somewhere recognizes one of those women.
Tattoos
Among the 22 bodies, seven were found in Belgium. Some with features as significant as that of the woman found on June 3, 1992 at a water pumping station near Deurne and on whose left forearm a black flower and the inscription 'R'Nick' had been tattooed.
Or that of the young woman found on May 31, 2009 in the Albert Canal, with false nails with drawings and her body submerged with the help of two gym weights of five kilos each.
On the Interpol website there is information on how to contact the police agencies of the three countries in case you have information about any of the women.
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