Monthly Archives: January 2022

ICMP-Facilitated Syrian Policy Coordination Group Discusses Draft Missing Persons Law

Filed under News Press Releases

The Hague, 28 January 2022: At its 7th meeting today, the Policy Coordination Group (PCG), a Syrian-led initiative on the missing and disappeared facilitated by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), discussed a draft Missing Persons Law drafted by the PCG, that can enable a sustainable and just process to account for the missing in Syria.

The law provides for systematic steps that are necessary to account for missing persons; it also stipulates measures to uphold the rights of families of the missing and ensure that they receive material and moral support.

More than 130,000 persons are estimated to be missing in Syria as a result of the conflict. In addition, the country has a legacy of missing and disappeared persons cases linked to human rights abuses and other causes prior to the conflict, and thousands of Syrians who have fled the fighting have gone missing…

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Albanian Family Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations Enhance Cooperation to Address the Issue of Persons Missing During the Communist Era

Filed under News Press Releases

Tirana, 25 January 2022 – Nine Albanian Family Associations (FAs) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to work collaboratively to address the issue of persons missing during the communist era in Albania as the result of the systematic violations of human rights from the former communist regime.

All nine signatories of the Memorandum of Understanding are beneficiaries of ICMP’s small grants program in Albania, which was funded by the European Union and the Swiss Government in 2020-2021.

It is estimated that around 6,000 persons went missing under the communist regime in Albania in the period between 1944 and 1991. According to official data, 5,501 persons convicted for political reasons were executed extrajudicially during this period. Their bodies were never returned to their families. Official data also indicates that an additional 987 political prisoners died from various causes in prisons and detention centers in Albania. The whereabouts…

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