The Humphrey Family's Frustrating Wait

[Jeff Dunsavage]

I just stumbled upon this BBC article about the maddening wait the family of Alex Humphrey, missing in Panama since August 2009, has had to endure to find out if a badly burned body found last year is Alex.

Alex's Mom, Gill Humphrey said: "We are meeting diplomatic blocks every time we move."

Gill said Interpol Panama should have contacted Interpol in the UK to arrange for DNA from a male relative to be tested against the body. Deputy Commissioner Alexis Muñoz, head of Interpol Panama, said he had not received any contact from the family since he took up his role in May 2010.

He said they had recently received an offer, via Interpol in the UK, for Greater Manchester Police to take DNA samples from male members of Mr Humphrey's family and send them to Panama for comparison.

The offer was being considered by the public prosecutor, he said.

"It is incredibly frustrating," Gill told BBC. "You just meet a wall of silence. IIf you ask someone something and they say no then you can argue with them but if they say nothing there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. The frustration is indescribable."

 

The Humphrey family's situation is a typical example of heaping bureaucratic insult upon the repeated injuries inflicted upon families of people who disappear outside their own national borders. It makes me want to vomit.  Haven't the Humphreys -- haven't all our families -- been through enough without our having to navigate the labrynthine hoops of international bureaucracy? Why is there no advocacy in the U.S. State Department or U.K. Foreign Office for such cases?