A woman whose body was discovered in Spain more than 20 years ago has been identified through an international police campaign.
The woman was named on Thursday as 31-year-old Russian citizen Liudmila Zavada.
She is the third person to be identified through the Operation Identify Me initiative, launched in 2023 to find the names of women who had been murdered or died in suspicious circumstances in Europe.
Valdecy Urquiza, secretary general of Interpol, stated that this identification brings fresh hope to the families of missing persons and provides new leads for ongoing investigations.
Ms Zavada's body was discovered in July 2005 beside a road in Barcelona, dressed entirely in pink, leading police to refer to her as the woman in pink. Investigations indicated that her death was suspicious, but her identity remained unknown until recently.
The identification was made possible through Operation Identify Me, which shares international data like fingerprints to assist in tracing unidentified bodies. Turkish police matched Ms Zavada's fingerprints with a national database, further corroborated by DNA evidence from a relative in Russia.
Although the mystery around her death persists, this case exemplifies the challenges law enforcement faces due to increased global migration and trafficking, complicating the identification of bodies.
