For Families of Some 9/11 Victims, New DNA Tools Reopen Old Wounds

People hold up photo memorials during a ceremony marking the 17th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, in New York on Sept. 11, 2018. AP Photo/Mark Lennihan
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NEW YORK —A breakthrough in DNA analysis is helping identify more victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York, but the scientific advance is of little consolation for families of those whose remains may have been buried in a Staten Island landfill.

The official death toll in the attacks on lower Manhattan’s World Trade Center is 2,753, including the missing and presumed dead. Only 1,642 of them, or about 60 percent, have been positively identified.