Thanks to reports about bone remains found, two DNA matches with long-term missing persons could recently be made, the North Holland police reported on Tuesday.
A bone belonging to a Belgian man who had been missing for seven years has been found on the beach of Schoorl. About seventy nautical miles above Schiermonnikoog, a skull was found that turned out to be that of a person from The Hague who had been missing for fifteen months.
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The police use the examples to emphasize how important it is that it is reported if possible human material is found.
In the case of Schoorl, it was a female doctor who, because of her professional background, immediately realized that what she saw there must be a human femur. She was walking on the beach in April and saw something in the so-called Hargen Lagoon, at the head of the province, not far from Bergen. This is a small sea lake created as a coastal reinforcement near Schoorl, which is located in an area with high dunes.
She secured the material and alerted the police, who after investigation confirmed that it was human material.
The Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) then established a DNA profile based on the material. This was compared with profiles from an international Interpol database.
This resulted in a match with a Belgian man who had been missing for seven years. The bone has now been taken to the home of this man’s relatives by a funeral director.
A few months ago, in mid-July 2025, Urk fishermen fished out a human skull at sea about 70 nautical miles above Schiermonnikoog. They photographed the body part and handed it over to the Identity Wanted Foundation on land.
Through this foundation, the human material ended up with the Maritime Police Team of the National Unit. Based on the DNA profile, the material could be linked to someone from The Hague who had been missing for some time.
The police are calling on fishermen if they find bone remains that could belong to a human to hand them in to the police. This also applies to bone remains found by hikers in the dunes or forests.
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If it turns out to indeed be human remains, the police can instruct the NFI to secure cell material from these and create a DNA profile for inclusion in the Missing Persons database.
The Dutch DNA database of Missing Persons stores DNA profiles of unidentified persons, missing persons and/or family members of missing persons. Family members of someone who has gone missing (at sea) can voluntarily provide DNA to the police, so that if a body or parts thereof are found, it can immediately be checked whether there is a match. Thanks to the collaboration with Interpol, the search is also taking place internationally.