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, which was launched by police in 2023 in an effort to find the names of women who had been murdered or died in suspicious or unexplained circumstances in Europe.
Valdecy Urquiza, secretary general of international policing agency Interpol, said the latest identification would give fresh hope to the families and friends of missing persons and new leads to investigators.
Ms Zavada's body was discovered in July 2005 beside a road in the province of Barcelona in northeastern Spain, where she was referred to by police as the woman in pink due to her clothing. Investigations failed to uncover her identity until her case was included in operation Identify Me last year.
Local police described her death as suspicious, with indications that her body had been moved shortly before discovery. The reveal of her identity comes after fingerprint analysis by Turkish authorities, which matched her DNA to a close family member in Russia.
The police investigations surrounding the circumstances of her death are ongoing, shedding light on the broader issue of gender-based violence impacting women across Europe.
