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The Hague 10 March 2026: International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) experts, in collaboration with the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST), have published findings on advances in DNA-based human identification, in the prestigious journal Forensic Science International: Genetics.
The April issue features an article on DNA preservation in highly degraded skeletal remains from the Vietnam war, describing a technique developed at the ICMP laboratories in The Hague coupled with formal training, implementation, and concordance testing in Hanoi at the Center for DNA Identification (CDI) laboratory of Vietnam. Human autosomal DNA was successfully recovered from 70 percent of the bone samples tested using the innovative technique, which opens the way for a new approach to resolving decades-old cases in Vietnam.
A second article, now available online and scheduled to be published in the June issue of FSI Genetics, describes comparative evaluation of SNP sequencing workflows. A study undertaken by ICMP and Vietnamese scientists shows that the targeted sequencing of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) using optimized, sensitive DNA library preparation techniques, offers a viable path forward in large-scale human identification in Vietnam.
In December 2025, a ceremony was held in Hanoi to mark the first identification of missing Vietnamese soldiers made possible through the new DNA identification process. The technology tailored to conditions in Vietnam, where unidentified human remains from the conflict have been buried for decades, enables kinship analysis up to the fourth or fifth degree, even for samples with poor quality DNA.
Since 2020, ICMP has been helping Vietnam to develop an effective, DNA-led missing persons identification process. Technical and software development, provision of equipment, training, and extensive testing have been conducted over the last two years through a partnership between VAST and ICMP, with support from the United States Government. The new system is expected eventually to enable thousands of additional identifications.
Cooperation between ICMP scientists and their Vietnamese counterparts contributes to the Vietnamese Government’s objective of identifying more than 300,000 sets of human remains from past conflicts.
About ICMP
ICMP is a treaty-based intergovernmental organization with Headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands. Its mandate is to secure the cooperation of governments and others in locating missing persons from conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organized crime, migration, and other causes, and to assist them in doing so.
