Interpol, the international organization that facilitates cooperation between police forces from different countries, has released an appeal to identify 22 women found dead in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands between 1979 and 2019. Most of them are young women, between 15 and 30 years old, who were violently killed and never identified. The fact that for years they remained without an identity led the police to the conclusion that they came from countries other than those where their bodies were found (mainly Central and Eastern Europe is assumed) and that they had been transported there just to hinder the investigation.
The Interpol program is called Operation Identify Me and is based on the idea that the identity of the victims is often the information that is missing to unblock many investigations and find those responsible, as well as the only way to give answers to the families who are still looking for them. Unlike what usually happens with this type of investigation, Operation Identify Me requires that many details of the cases are made public to stimulate public participation. To involve as many people as possible, Interpol has also launched a communication campaign with a video in which some famous women from the countries involved address the viewer to invite him to give his own contribution.
Files, photos and a video summary of the case for each victim have been published on the Interpol website. There are facial reconstructions of some of the murdered women, photos of where they were found, a list of physical characteristics, as well as materials showing personal effects such as jewelry, clothes, and anything that might help people who knew them identify them.
These are details that Interpol usually inserts in the so-called “black notices”, ie internal notices for the search for information on unidentified bodies, with the difference that this time the notices are public and can be consulted by anyone online. On the Interpol website we read: “If you have information on any of them, contact the competent national police team using the form on each page”.
The case that started the campaign is that of a woman who was found dead in an industrial waste container in the river Gaasp, near Amsterdam in 1999. She is known to have been between 18 and 35 years of age, she was 159 centimeters tall, had light skin and was killed by a gunshot. On the Interpol website there is also a list of the clothes she was wearing and other men’s clothes that were found in the same container, probably to increase its weight and keep it from floating.
