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Civil Protection Association Dental Team DVI Italia enters Europe to enhance border control and identify migrants victims

There are Countries where forensic odontologists are not yet routinely involved or are not permanent members of their DVI teams. Italy is one of those countries where the Carabinieri and State Police agencies have assembled DVI teams which include pathologists, biologists, fingerprint and other technicians, but has not as yet incorporated odontology as one of the standard resources.

The volunteers of the association aim to integrate human identification process into the response to civil protection emergencies through the use of experts in dental identification, and also provide means and human resources capable of performing dental autopsies for PM dental data collection and AM-PM dental data reconciliation. Activities carried out in these years: in November 2016 the association organized a basic course (12 hours) on forensic dental identification and mass disaster management; an advanced course (20 hours) with hands-on experience and a simulation of a dental autopsy in forensic dental identification and Disaster Victim Identification was held in December 2017; pro bono assistance during the train crash which occurred near Bari on the 12th of July 2016 which resulted in 23 casualties; participation in several educational courses, in Italy and abroad with the aim of promoting forensic odontology and humanitarian forensic odontology.

In order to comply with the EU General Protection Data Regulation (GPDR) and to support humanitarian aid operations as well as the European Civil protection agency, the general assembly of the Association voted on the 19th of April 2019 for an amendment to the Statute and the name of the association. The Association modified the name to Dental Team DVI Europe; its aims have not changed, however. The modifications were made simply to widen the scope of the Association to cover the whole of Europe, and not only the Italian border. Dental Team DVI Europe will recruit international volunteers with expertise in forensic odontology and experience in DVI and Interpol standards. Also, through educational collaborations with universities, it will set up a reserve team of multinational experts capable of assisting in the disaster victim identification processes and migratory flow border control, thereby strengthening the collective European disaster response.
The association will identify any eventual gaps in the human identification process and propose how these gaps might be closed. Through training or offers of technical assistance, the efficiency of the response of the country affected can be significantly increased. Also under consideration are possible collaborations with medicolegal institutes of Universities, and with law enforcement agencies (Europol, Interpol, Frontex), European civil protection, international courts (Eurojust, ICC). Collaboration with international organizations for the protection of migrants and the families of missing persons is also foreseen once the team has reached its full deployment capacity.