The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) and the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) will sign a Memorandum of Understanding in Pristina on Wednesday, 26 November 2003. Representatives of family associations of missing persons from the conflict, as well high-level Kosovo government officials, including President Ibrahim Rugova and Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi, and members of the Coordination Center for Kosovo, are expected to attend the ceremony. Deputy SRSG, Jean Christian Cady, will sign on behalf of UNMIK and Gordon Bacon, Chief of Staff will sign for ICMP.In an effort to help Kosovo with its missing persons issue, ICMP began its operations in Kosovo in June 1999 and completed an agreement with the Coordination Center for Kosovo (CCK) in October 2001. The new MoU will reinforce procedures between ICMP and UNMIKregarding a DNA- led identification process, with the aim of better assisting families in their search for information on…

Gordon Bacon, the Chief of Staff of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) made a review of progress in the country towards the determination of the fate and whereabouts of all persons searched for as a result of the 2001 crisis. Mr. Bacon noted that despite assurances made by the Government, minimal visible progress has been made to date.Notably absent is any implementation of an ICMP initiative presented to the Government a year ago to establish a national process to determine the fate and whereabouts of the 20 plus missing persons. ICMP’s initiative provides for the creation of a neutral and independent coordination body that would report directly to the Prime Minister and that would include persons representing both major ethnic communities in Macedonia.

In June the Parliament approved the creation of a Government/Parliamentary Commission, however, this commission was never implemented. In line with ICMP’s initial proposal, in August…

Today marks the second anniversary of the first DNA- assisted identification in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was made on 16th November 2001 by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP). ICMP is the first organization to successfully apply a population-based, DNA-led identification process in a post-conflict environment. The use of DNA assisted identifications not only increases the speed and accuracy of identifications, but also allows identifications to be made for post-conflict cases where this may not have otherwise been possible.

It is estimated that following the conflicts in the regions of former Yugoslavia, a total of approximately 40,000 persons were missing, 30,000 of them as a consequence of the conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and that of that number approximately 8,000 were men and boys missing from the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995. Since 1996, numerous mass graves have been discovered and exhumed in BiH, indicating that the…