Body parts that washed up on Texel in 2023 belonged to two young men fleeing Afghanistan
After nearly three years, the Dutch police have identified the human remains that washed ashore in 2023, NH reports. They belonged to two young men, aged 20 and 27, who had fled from Afghanistan. The Red Cross notified their surviving loved ones last month.
The police managed to finally identify these men through DNA analysis, working with France and Afghanistan, spokesperson Erwin Sintenie of the Noord-Holland police told NH. “The message for their surviving loved ones is not good, but we are happy and proud that we were able to provide them with clarity.”
Two Texel residents separately found the body parts on October 6, 2023. A beachcomber discovered a lower body, with clothing and protruding thigh bones, along the western coastline. A few hours later, a beachgoer found a shoe with a foot inside near De Koog. They were buried as “unidentified dead” in Den Burg on Texel.
The Noord-Holland police immediately started working on identifying the remains. A few weeks after the discovery, DNA analysis revealed that they involved two different men. But tracing their identity proved more difficult. Their DNA did not show up in the missing persons databases of the Netherlands, other European countries, or internationally.
The police believed that the victims were asylum seekers. Items belonging to asylum seekers trying to cross the Channel between France and England regularly wash ashore on Dutch beaches. And the police found a cellphone with a SIM card from France in the pocket of the trousers covering the lower body.
With journalists’ help, the police made contact with aid organizations around the Channel. They put the detectives on the trail of the two asylum seekers, men aged 20 and 27 who had fled Afghanistan and gone missing.
At the police’s request, the Red Cross collected DNA samples from the missing men’s families in Afghanistan and sent them to the Netherlands. The matches came back positive.
Red Cross spokespersons told NH that the families are saddened by the news, but relieved to finally know what happened to their loved ones.
