Search for the missing continues after Ratko Mladic verdict

Against the backdrop of Ratko Mladic’s conviction at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Matthew Holliday, the head of the International Commission on Missing Persons’ Western Balkans program, has explained that ICMP’s pioneering use of DNA technology has led to the identification of around 70 percent of the 40,000 people who were unaccounted for after the conflicts in former Yugoslavia. Holliday adds that ICMP staff provided expert testimony in more than 30 cases at the ICTY, including the Mladic trial. http://bit.ly/2hNedj5

UN calls on Iraq to probe troop violations during fight with Da’esh

A top UN official has called on the Iraqi government to speed up investigations into allegations of human rights violations committed by security forces during the fight against Da’esh and to make the results public. Agnes Callamard, the UN’s special investigator on extrajudicial executions, has stressed to…

Ratko Mladic convicted of genocide

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has convicted ex-Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic of genocide and crimes against humanity. The ICTY found Mladic guilty on 10 of 11 charges, including the slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica and the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, in which more than 10,000 civilians were killed by shelling, mortar and sniper fire. Mladic was hustled out of the court minutes before the verdict for angrily shouting, “This is all lies, you are all liars!” http://tmsnrt.rs/2hLJaEf

Nepal: Prime Minister to give testimony on enforced disappearances

The Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP), one of the two transitional justice mechanisms in Nepal, is preparing to summon Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to record his statement on the charge that the state of emergency imposed during his tenure as prime minister during…

ICTY to deliver verdict in Ratko Mladic trial

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia hands down its verdict on Wednesday in the trial of Ratko Mladic, who is accused of ordering the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, as well as crimes against humanity over the siege of Sarajevo in which 11,000 civilians died from shelling and sniper fire. Munira Subasic of the Mothers of Srebrenica group recalls how Mladic was filmed after the fall of Srebrenica telling women and children that nothing would happen. “After the cameras left he gave an order to kill whoever could be killed, rape whoever could be raped and finally he ordered us all to be banished and chased out of Srebrenica.” The remains of Subasic’s son Nermin and husband Hilmo were both found in mass graves by the International Commission of Missing Persons. ICMP has identified some 6,900…

As Mladic awaits verdict, Bosnians still search for loved ones

On Wednesday, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) will hand down a verdict in the case of Ratko Mladic. Prosecutors say Mladic played a pivotal role in a ruthless campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In total, the Bosnian conflict left some 100,000 people dead and around 7,000 of them are still missing. The effort to find their bodies is hampered by the fact that the killers scattered the remains. A laboratory set up in 1996 by the International Commission on Missing Persons has succeeded in identifying 70 percent of the 40,000 missing from the 1990s Balkan conflicts. More than three-quarters of those who disappeared were from Bosnia. http://bit.ly/2Aj3CYF

 Why do so many Indian children go missing?

According to India’s Ministry of Women and Child Development, 242,938 children disappeared between 2012 and…

Yezidi captives “hidden in plain sight”

Almost half of the more than 6,000 Yezidis kidnapped by Da’esh three years ago have still not been found. Yet many are hidden in plain sight, aid workers and Yezidi activists say, living with Arab families who have sought refuge in refugee camps. Forced to convert to Islam, they now fear for their lives if they are found, according to aid worker and Yezidi activist Mirza Dinaye. “We know they are completely assimilated into the Muslim community,” he says. “They think the Yezidi faith has been eradicated, and often suffer from Stockholm syndrome.” http://bit.ly/2hEos9t

 Identifying the missing in Bosnia

Forensic anthropologist Dragana Vucetic collects DNA samples from the bones of people killed in eastern Bosnia during the war, including in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, and reassembles their skeletal remains. Vucetic’s employer, the International Commission on Missing Persons, has pioneered a DNA-based identification system. Through…

More suspected mass graves discovered in Indonesia

The 1965 Murder Victims Research Foundation, an organization representing victims of the mass killings of 1965-66 in Indonesia, says it has located 16 suspected mass graves in central Java that may contain the remains of up to 5,000 victims. Over several months in 1965-66, at least 500,000 people – possibly as many as one million – were killed in anti-communist violence. In May 2016, the Indonesian government announced that it would form a team to investigate a list of 122 alleged mass grave sites from this period compiled by victims’ advocacy groups; so far it has failed to do so. http://bit.ly/2hGdIuS

Iraq police report discovery of new mass grave

Iraqi police say they have found a grave containing the remains of some 20 bodies in the town of Shirqat in north central Iraq, which was recently a Da’esh stronghold. The remains were found by…

Slavery in Libya

Each year, tens of thousands of refugees pour across Libya’s borders fleeing conflict or poverty. A recent clampdown by the Libyan coastguard has caused fewer boats to attempt the voyage to Europe, leaving smugglers with a backlog of would-be passengers. So, the smugglers become masters, the migrants and refugees become slaves. http://cnn.it/2zDAc6o

Colombia: court approves peace jurisdiction, with changes

Colombia’s Constitutional Court has approved the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) a post-conflict transitional justice system that is seen as the backbone of the 2016 peace agreement. The Court approved the JEP unanimously, but made several adjustments to the text agreed by the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, and the government of President Juan Manuel Santos. http://bit.ly/2iXN1yw

HRW: Rohingya women raped by Myanmar soldiers

A Human Rights Watch report based on firsthand interviews with 52 Rohingya women and girls who have fled to Bangladesh says there is evidence…

Calls for government action after disappearance of Bangladeshi academic

Bangladeshi academic Mubashar Hasan may have been subject to an enforced disappearance, Amnesty International said on Monday. His disappearance since 7 November, according to PEN America, “is yet another egregious example of Bangladesh’s failure to protect independent voices within Bangladesh’s intellectual sphere”. Karin Karlekar, director of Free Expression at Risk Programs at PEN America, said Hasan’s disappearance “is another in a long line of grave threats to scholars and independent thinkers in Bangladesh,” and called on the authorities to “step up efforts to find and free Dr. Hasan from whatever forces are responsible for his disappearance as soon as possible.” http://bit.ly/2zLxIRl

Nepal prepares to extend mandate of transitional justice mechanisms

With less than three months to go before the expiry of the tenure of two transitional justice mechanisms in Nepal – the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission of Investigation on…