Sarajevo, 17 March: A delegation of Libyan government officials and experts have concluded a 5-day, ICMP-facilitated visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) where they had an opportunity to learn at first hand about the process implemented in BIH to account for persons missing from the conflict of the 1990s. In the last 25 years, with ICMP assistance and through the pioneering use of DNA, the authorities in BIH have been able to account for 75 percent of the 30,000 people who went missing during the conflict, a ratio that has not been equalled in any other post-conflict country.

“The authorities in Libya are facing a major challenge to address the issue of missing persons from different causes,” said ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger. “Bosnia and Herzegovina developed a successful model of a missing persons process that enables families of the missing to secure their right to truth, justice and reparations. This…

The Hague, 16 March 2023: The Kingdom of the Netherlands will provide funding to the International Commission on Missing Person (ICMP) to conduct an assessment of the scope and situation of the missing persons issue in the South Caucasus related to the armed conflicts beginning in 1988 between Armenia and Azerbaijan and to issue a set of recommendations which would enhance the creation of a sustainable process of accounting for the missing in each country.

The assessment, which will be conducted in during 2023, will examine the engagement of relevant governmental and judicial institutions, legislative frameworks, scientific and technical capacities, the engagement of families of the missing, advocacy groups and other members of civil society, with an emphasis on female-led organizations, data collection and data analysis capacities, documentation of illicit gravesites, cooperative mechanisms and other measures.

“I visited Armenia in March 2022 and Azerbaijan in April 2022 at the invitation of…

The Hague, 15 March 2023 – Today marks the 12th anniversary of the start of the Syrian uprising. As a result of the subsequent conflict, more than 130,000 people have gone missing and the numbers continue to rise. Men, women, and children have been abducted, killed, and forcibly disappeared, or have gone missing along migratory routes while fleeing from the fighting.

“It is critical that those responsible, including the Syrian regime, demonstrate the political will to release prisoners and find missing and disappeared persons in line with international law,” said ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger. “States are responsible for securing the rights of families to truth and justice.” “ICMP reaffirms its solidarity with the families of the victims of atrocities, enforced disappearances and other human rights abuses committed in Syria, as well as with families of those who are missing following the devastating earthquake earlier this year.” she added.

ICMP remains committed to…

Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina 28 February 2023 – Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) Director-General Carin Jämtin, Ambassador of Sweden to Bosnia and Herzegovina Johanna Stromquist, Head of the Europe and Latin America Department at Sida, Lisa Fredriksson, and the Head of Development Cooperation at the Embassy of Sweden in BIH, Eva Smedberg.  witnessed the painstaking process of identifying victims of the conflict in former Yugoslavia during their visit to see the work of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).

During the visit to Tuzla, the delegation that was accompanied by the Deputy Head of ICMP’s Western Balkans Program, Samira Krehic learned how ICMP collects genetic reference samples from the families of the missing and how essential this is for the scientifically accurate, blinded process of DNA matching used to identify missing persons. So far, ICMP has collected data from 100,000 families of the missing and over 50,000 post mortem…