Every day the scientist at the Forensic Anthropology Laboratory of the University of Milan – Labanof – analyze DNA and tattoos, medical report and dental casts to minutely catalog dozens of bodies. They try to give them identity and dignity. Labanof is working on the first project ever to identify those who lost their lives in the bottom of the Mediterranean. The Italian experimental science project is a collaboration between the Special Commissioner for Missing Persons, the Italian Navy, forensic and Sicilian universities. The goal is to create a European protocol, a practice to use after every shipwreck: no more anonymous victims.

Photos Guido Montani on assignments for La Stampa
Text Stefano Rizzato
Photo Editor Irene Opezzo