DNA forensics can help lost Nigerian girls

DNA forensics can help lost Nigerian girls

Chibok school girls who escaped from the Boko Haram Islamists gather to receive informations from officials. Photo: AFP Scientists in the United States believe they can help identify Nigerias missing schoolgirls by using DNA technologyFrom AFP

Forensic DNA technology could help identify and reunite with their families the more than 200 Nigerian girls who were kidnapped by Islamist militants, scientists said on Tuesday.

Software already exists to match missing people with their relatives, and it has been used worldwide to identify and return more than 740 children who were trafficked, some across international borders.

Most of all, forensic scientists in the United States and Spain say they are ready to help, free of charge. All they need to get started are DNA samples from family members of the lost schoolgirls.

We would do this absolutely for nothing, said Arthur Eisenberg, chairman of the department of molecular and medical genetics at the University of North Texas (UNT).

This is clearly a humanitarian effort, said Eisenberg who heads the UNT Centre for Human Identification, the lab that works with an international programme called DNA-Prokids, which aims to reunite families and deter human trafficking.

First, the girls family members - mother, father or another close relative - could provide a DNA sample by swabbing the inside of their mouths with a cotton tip or giving a blood sample.

Then, Eisenberg said, he and colleagues establish DNA profiles of the families using a software system called M-FISys (pronounced emphasis).

The software was developed in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks to help forensic scientists in New York City meet the enormous challenge of matching nearly 20,000 pieces of human remains to the more than 2,700 people who died in the Twin Towers.

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DNA forensics can help lost Nigerian girls