La Comisión Internacional sobre Personas Desaparecidas

At the invitation of associations of families of missing persons in Kosovo, a group of three Srebrenica family association representatives are visiting Kosovo from Bosnia-Herzegovina to participate in the commemoration of missing from the village of Meja on April 27 and to exchange experience with associations of families of missing persons in Kosovo.The annual event gathers thousands of local residents in memory of the 374 victims who were taken from Meja, near Gjakova in Kosovo on that April 27, 1999. To date, the bodies of 182 of them have been identified and 166 have been buried. On April 27, 2005 an additional 16 identified persons will be buried. The remains of victims from Meja were exhumed from mass graves in Batajnica, Serbia and were identified with the assistance of DNA matching by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).

The Srebrenica family representatives will make public remarks as part of…

In a region where political manipulation of numbers of killed and missing from previous wars fanned the flames of further conflicts, ICMP Chairman James Kimsey told reporters on Tuesday that accurate accounting of the missing is essential.Speaking after a tour of ICMP’s Identification Coordination Division (ICD) in Tuzla, eastern Bosnia, which houses the ICMP databases storing DNA information obtained from bones exhumed from grave sites and from blood samples of family members searching for missing relatives, Mr. Kimsey said the work of ICMP represented the first attempt in the world to accurately account for persons missing as a result of conflict. Since it made its first DNA match in November 2001, ICMP has found DNA matches with family members for more than 7,300 missing individuals at the ICD and every day brings more matches.

“DNA technology can now provide empirical evidence of a person’s identity and it can provide hard…

In talks with International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) Chairman James Kimsey this morning, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Adnan Terzić, and entity Prime Ministers Ahmet Hadžipašić and Pero Bukejlović, as well as the Mayor of the Brčko District, Mirsad Đapo, agreed on the Protocol to establish the Missing Persons Institute (MPI) as a State-level institution.At a press conference following the meeting, Mr. Kimsey, who is on a two-day visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina, told reporters that following intensive and successful deliberations with the governments, and with the full support of the families of the missing, the Protocol simply awaited final approval from the Council of Ministers. “I have a guarantee from Mr. Terzic that he will fast-track this procedure”, said Mr. Kimsey.

At a meeting later in the morning with the Chairman of the BiH Joint Presidency, His Excellency Borislav Paravac, Mr. Kimsey thanked Mr. Pavarac for supporting the…

The Royal Netherlands Embassy made a contribution of one million Euros yesterday to support the work of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in the identification of victims of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. The Netherlands Embassy has requested that the funding be used to assist in the identification of victims of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in particular of the 1995 fall of Srebrenica.Identification of the estimated 8,000 Srebrenica victims is complicated by the fact that many of the mass graves in which they were buried were dug up and the bodies moved, sometimes more than once, in efforts by the perpetrators to hide evidence of the killings. As a consequence, victims’ remains have been commingled in secondary mass graves; in some cases, the remains of a single victim are found in two or more grave sites.

“As we approach the tenth anniversary of the…

The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) is pleased to announce that Swedish Ambassador and High Commissioner on National Minorities of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Rolf Ekéus has joined the ICMP Commission.Ambassador Ekéus has a distinguished career in international diplomacy, with a strong focus on arms control, disarmament and conflict prevention. As well as representing Sweden for many years in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Ambassador Ekéus was, from 1991 to 1997, Director of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), the UN body charged with overseeing Iraqi disarmament.

Ambassador Ekéus’ dedication to conflict prevention, his experience in working with national minorities and his background in Iraq will be valuable assets to the mission of ICMP. Through its work in exhumation and identification of victims of violent conflict, as well as its policy advocacy with governments and support of families of missing victims,…

The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has donated 300,000 Euros to support the activities of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), contributing to the identification of persons missing in the former Yugoslavia as a result of armed conflicts in the region.Explaining the importance of the work his country is supporting, Norwegian Ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina Henrik Ofstad said “This work is about truth and justice, and it will help family members who lost loved ones to know what happened to their relatives. We have to do our utmost to contribute to the identification of those who were killed in the terrible wars in this region. As we have the people and the technology to do it, nothing should prevent us helping to resolve fate of those missing persons. ICMP has done a remarkable job so far, and I wish ICMP further success in this important work.”

The Norwegian assistance is…

Human Rights Festival VIVISECT, organized by the Regional Women Initiative “Vojvođanka” from 13 to 19 December 2004, in Novi Sad, Serbia and Montenegro, featured the “Voices of the Missing” exhibition presented by the International Commission of Missing Persons (ICMP).”War conflicts in the area of former Yugoslavia – a view from the inside and outside,” was title of the first part of the festival, in which regional and international artists presented the films and photo exhibitions. The goal of the festival was to initiate a public discussion about the war in the former Yugoslavia, to point out the necessity of knowing facts regarding the war conflict, to present truth as a mosaic of different elements, which when combined give a more clear perspective on the recent past.

The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) first organized the “Voices of the Missing” exhibition at the National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo,…

At a conference organized by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) Friday, December 10, 2004, representatives of the Council of Ministers told family members of missing persons from across Bosnia-Herzegovina that their opinions would be taken into consideration in the establishment of a state-level Missing Persons Institute. The one-day conference, held in Sarajevo on Human Rights day to underline that resolution of the fate of missing persons is a human rights issue, was organized by ICMP to inform and consult with family members about implications of the adoption of the Law on Missing Persons and progress on the Missing Persons Institute (MPI).Representatives of the Families’ Associations attending the conference reiterated their desire to be active participants in resolving the fate of their loved ones and in the work of the Missing Persons Institute, but raised questions about regional representation within BiH of the Missing Persons Institute. They said…

DNA specialists from the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) have started to analyze blood samples collected during a joint campaign with the Government of Croatia to help identify missing persons from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. In a campaign that covered 18 cities across Croatia during the last two weekends of November 2004, teams from ICMP and the Croatian Ministry of the Family, Veterans’ Affairs and Intergenerational Solidarity collected 754 new blood samples from family members of missing persons. DNA profiles are now being generated from the blood samples of family members, which will later be compared to DNA profiles taken from mortal remains that have been found in grave sites across the former Yugoslavia.During the campaign, 118 new missing persons cases were opened, as family members of persons who had not previously been listed on ICMP’s missing persons database came forward to give blood samples. “We…

Members of a technical delegation of Iraqi missing persons officials concluded a week-long fact-finding visit to the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in Bosnia-Herzegovina Friday, saying they would like to apply ICMP methods to the missing persons problem in Iraq.The five-person delegation included the Iraqi Minister for Human Rights of Iraq, His Excellency Dr. Bakhtiar Amin, who departed Sarajevo on Monday, accompanied by the head of the Baghdad Medico-Legal Institute. The three remaining missing persons officials, who work in the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry, left Sarajevo this afternoon.

Iraqi officials estimate there are between 300,000 and one million missing persons in Iraq, believed to be buried in mass graves around the country. The goal of this fact-finding visit was for members of the delegation to learn about the assistance ICMP can offer in addressing the missing persons issue in Iraq. ICMP gave detailed introductions to its work on assisting…