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A Global Response to a Global Challenge

Chilean Servicio Médico Legal experts meet staff at ICMP HQ.

Filed under News Press Releases

1 October 2014: Two forensic experts from the Government of Chile have completed a three-day fact-finding visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina, including meetings with staff at the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP). The visit reflects the emergence of a global response to the global challenge of missing persons, in which ICMP is playing a leading role.

The Servicio Médico Legal (SML) is the lead agency in identifying several thousand people who went missing in Chile during the period of military rule from 1973 to 1990. The Chilean authorities have adopted a systematic and law-based approach to finding the missing and to addressing the social tensions created by past human rights violations.

ICMP has been cooperating with the SML since 2008, providing DNA testing of 2,432 reference blood samples and 194 post-mortem samples from missing persons, and offering technical advice on DNA matching.

The visit by SML forensic experts Macarena Arias and…

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ICMP Declaration signing video

Filed under News Video

In an historic event hosted by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), the Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bakir Izetbegović, President of the Republic of Croatia Ivo Josipović, President of Montenegro Filip Vujanović and President of the Republic of Serbia Tomislav Nikolić signed a “Declaration on the Role of the State in Addressing the Issue of Persons Missing as a Consequence of Armed Conflict and Human Rights Abuses”. The signing event took place in in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on 29 August, 2014, on the eve of the International Day of the Disappeared.

Hear the statements of the event’s participants and see the signing ceremony in the video below.

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ICMP releases key report on Colombia’s Missing

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Map of ColombiaICMP report provides overview of the problem and important recommendations to Colombia

21 October 2008: The report, entitled Colombia’s Response to Enforced Disappearances, examines Colombia’s efforts to confront the problem of thousands of cases of enforced disappearance through analyzing its work in searching for and identifying victims, including the institutional and procedural mechanisms established for that purpose, the technical processes employed and the work undertaken directly with the victims, as they were at the close of the assessment (March 2008). Further, the report contains a list of precise recommendations that, if implemented, should further enhance different aspects of the search and identification process in Colombia.

One of the many tragic consequences of Colombia’s internal armed conflict has been the enforced disappearance of many thousands of people. In cases of enforced disappearance,…

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