MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands: 95 Families have consented to ID tests of Darwin cemetery remains; task should begin 19 June

Falklands' Darwin Cemetery holds the remains of 123 unknown Argentine soldiers and the Red Cross will be tasked in trying to identify them with DNA tests

The Argentine foreign ministry confirmed that 95 families from the 123 Argentine unknown combatants buried at Falkland Islands' Darwin Cemetery have consented to the identification of remains, a task to be undertaken by the International Red Cross, allegedly beginning next 19 June.

 The ministry said that Families Commission had previously requested a double check of the list to offset some of the “falsified consents” apparently added by the government of Cristina Fernandez.

”Before the end of the year the final report (on identifications) will be ready“ according to the Red Cross which will be working in the Falklands from June to the end of August. Apparently this was informed to Argentina's Human Rights Secretary, Claudio Avruj, who earlier this month was in Geneva to coordinate and advance in the issue with the Red Cross.

The Argentine ministry also reported that the positive consent reply to the Red Cross from 95 families does not mean the remaining number has denied the identification process, but rather relatives have not been found, or have died, ”but we are still working on that“.

As to the complaint from the Fallen in Malvinas Relatives Commission, who requested that some of the family interviews be repeated, the ministry reported to have found ”inexact information and terrible mistakes“ committed by the staff under ex minister Hector Timerman.

”Interviews in those cases were doubts surfaced were repeated, and the families' authorization were registered and documented by a public notary”.

Once the Red Cross completes the task of obtaining samples from the remains of the unknown combatants buried in Darwin, these will be taken to the Cordoba Forensic Anthropology Team for the DNA data crossing. A double check test will take place in Spain, and hopefully by the end of the year results will be available to the Families, said the Argentine foreign ministry sources as reported by the official news agency Telam.