Migrant disaster: Meet the person figuring out individuals who died attempting to succeed in Europe

Pavlos Pavlidis leans again within the chair of his workplace, surveys a number of cardboard packing containers on his desk and takes a deep draw of one among many cigarettes.

Pavlidis is a coroner on the hospital in Alexandroupolis, in northern Greece.

Since he began working right here in 2000, he is been finishing up post-mortems on migrants who’ve died attempting to get into Greece, after which making an attempt to determine them.

“The cause of death is normally obvious,” he tells me. “The problem is finding out who they actually were.”

Within minutes of assembly him, he is exhibiting me photographs as an example the distinction between those that have died from drowning and hypothermia.

They should not for the squeamish, however he insists folks ought to perceive simply how harmful these crossings are.

“All these people – they were killed by migration,” he says.

He conducts a autopsy to ascertain the causes of loss of life (“it’s normally obvious,” he says, with a shrug) however Pavlidis additionally dutifully catalogues ways in which the sufferer is perhaps recognized.

Some carry passports, however these progressively disintegrate within the water, together with different paper paperwork.

All possessions are saved in sealed luggage

The clothes they have been carrying when discovered is photographed and so too are any tattoos or gadgets of jewelry.

Everything is saved in a bag, marked with a novel reference quantity that tracks their case, from the primary police report till finally, a headstone.

The our bodies are saved on the hospital, both in a particular space of the morgue or in refrigerated items which might be, incongruously, positioned on a service highway outdoors the constructing.

The concept is to hope that somebody, someplace, will register a lacking individual, get proven a photograph of clothes or jewelry and are available ahead to place a reputation to the physique.

The luggage of possessions are within the packing containers on Pavlidis’ desk, fastidiously sealed and saved for the day when a relative would possibly immediately seem.

Some are distinctive – a picket crucifix pendant taken from a person who drowned; a bracelet proclaiming, “I BELIEVE”; notes from family and friends.

There is a child’s dummy in a single bag.

Pavlos believes that, often, a household may be reunited with the physique of the beloved one they misplaced, that he can ship closure: “An answer, even if it’s a bad answer,” as he calls it.

And then, as we discuss, two folks arrive outdoors his workplace – a Syrian household who now dwell in Germany.

A 12 months earlier than, their brother had tried to get into Greece from Turkey.

Those with him stated he reached dry land, however then thought he heard capturing, and jumped again into the water to cover.

The catastrophic downside was that the person was carrying all of the clothes he may carry, and the water soaked them instantly. He drowned.

His sister contacted the Red Cross, who had already acquired photographs from Pavlidis.

And a type of photographs – of a particular zip-up jacket – appeared acquainted. It was her brother’s.

‘The physique is outdoors within the fridge’

They come and sit within the workplace.

Pavlidis, calmly and with little ceremony, confirms some particulars.

“The body is outside in the refrigerator”, he says.

He reveals them a photograph. “Look at these shoes?”

“Yes, yes,” says his sister, by tears.

Another photograph, this time of the clothes. Another nod. More quiet sobbing. It’s clear that it is their relative, however they should be certain.

So, the lady is informed to supply a DNA pattern – a swab taken from inside her cheek and some drops of blood from her finger.

It can be in contrast with the DNA pattern taken from the physique.

But the method just isn’t fast. Pavlidis expects it to take a month.

The household, weary and glassy-eyed, had hoped for a solution inside a few days.

“It will be him – I am 99% sure,” says Pavlidis, after the relations have left.

On his cabinets are 24 lever-arch recordsdata – one for every year since he began preserving data again in 2000.

“My focus is on the relatives, on doing what is best for them,” he says.

“The relatives must know what happened. It is…”, he pauses, “ethical.”

‘The Mediterranean is changing into a mass grave’

Thousands have already died this 12 months crossing the Mediterranean to attempt to get to Europe.

“Europe has the highest number of dead and missing migrants in the world,” says Kathryne Bomberger, director-general of the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP).

“The Mediterranean is becoming a mass grave on a scale that has not been seen in the world before.”

The ICMP has lengthy been on the forefront of utilizing DNA to attempt to monitor down lacking folks, pioneered following probably the most appalling excesses of the Bosnian struggle.

“We started using DNA because of Srebrenica,” she says.

Now, they pursue individuals who have gone lacking due to pure disasters, struggle, trafficking, crime, human slavery or, in fact, migration.

They have helped to determine greater than 20,000 folks over time.

Sometimes, after a pure catastrophe, a authorities will do the whole lot it might to assist prepare identification.

But on the subject of placing a reputation to migrants who’ve died whereas attempting to get into Europe, the assist just isn’t there.

It is, says Bomberger, “an ad hoc” course of: “I’ll be honest with you, there is no mechanism. All the things we hoped would be put into place still don’t exist.

“Every time there’s a catastrophe just like the ship that went down off Greece, all of us scramble.”

‘We have a million ideas, but… it’s politics’

What she wants is structure and organisation, with the ability to share data and buy-in from governments.

“The DNA mechanisms and the information methods exist. We have 1,000,000 concepts about how to make sure co-operation, however the governments have to take accountability…it is politics.”

So instead, like Pavlidis, she perseveres – working and waiting, helping and hoping.

An hour’s drive from Pavlidis’s busy hospital, and we’re standing in a cemetery on the finish of a dusty monitor on the outskirts of a distant Greek village.

The solar is setting, and the weeds are tall.

A praying mantis is idling on a leaf by my ft.

And throughout us are lots of of graves occupied by individuals who by no means noticed this place of their lives.

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Everyone buried right here was a migrant, who died whereas attempting to cross the close by border with Turkey and so attain the promised land of the European Union.

And nearly all of them are nameless, their graves marked solely by roughly-shaped stones coated in a rudimentary whitewash.

This is a cemetery of the unknown.

But every grave comes with a quantity, a narrative and a paper path.

Look into these numbers, and you’ll find out the place the physique was discovered, how the individual died, whether or not they had any distinguishing options, what they have been carrying.

The clues that may simply result in a reputation showing on these clean headstones sometime.

At one finish of the cemetery, praying quietly, is Mehmet Serif Damadoglu.

For many years, he was the Imam and he nonetheless lives right here, in Sidiro.

It was he who oversaw lots of of ceremonies on the native mosque, the place migrants’ our bodies have been wrapped, blessed after which taken for burial.

The small native cemeteries started filling up and the locals complained that they’d don’t have any area left for their very own households, so Damadoglu helped to arrange this new burial floor outdoors the village.

It is used just for migrants’ graves and there at the moment are extra folks buried right here than there are residents residing within the village.

He is a person blessed with a straightforward smile and a permanent sense of religion on this planet.

“For us, all that matters is that they were fellow human beings, and therefore they deserve our respect. That’s all. No matter where they came from, they are human beings.

“Whoever comes on the lookout for their relative, we all know that they lie there, in that cemetery. It is solely for them.

“The burial rituals we perform on them, there is no discrimination. All the rituals I performed for my father and my mother, the exact same rituals we perform for the migrants. They are neither inferior nor superior. We are equal.”

It’s an ideological place that has not at all times gone down nicely.

He tells a unprecedented story of holding a service for a younger man whose physique was badly decomposed.

The village opposed it, saying it was unsanitary and that, if it needed to happen in any respect, it must be rushed.

Damadoglu was firm: “I said to them – what if this was your son? Would you stop me?”

And then, on the day of the burial, the person’s sister arrived from Somalia.

The Imam informed her to not open the shroud, to recollect him as he was, however as a substitute she undid the stitches and hugged her brother’s stays. It was a second of closure – uncommon however treasured.

And that’s the hope that’s symbolised by this cemetery on a hill. Blank gravestones which might be ready for a reputation.