International Commission on Missing Persons

The Hague, 28 February 2020: Four Iraqi scientists from Iraq’s Medico-Legal Directorate (MLD) strengthened their skills in DNA identification methods during training sessions held this month at the headquarters of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).

The training, held 17 to 28 February, was part of ICMP support to Iraqi authorities in developing capacity to handle missing persons cases.

Mr. Ahmed Qasim, Head of MLD’s Extraction Unit, and Mr. Omer Al-Barghooth, Extraction Unit Analyst focused on ICMP’s extraction protocol during a session held the first week, while Ms. Noor Salih, Head of MLD’s Quantification and Amplification Unit, and Ms. Haneen Rakhoo, Head of Capillary Electrophoresis Unit, focused on ICMP’s pre- and post-amplification procedures during a session held the second week.

Iraqi Ambassador Hisham Al-Alawi and staff from the Iraqi Embassy in the Netherlands took part in ceremonies that closed the training sessions.

The training, which included practical sessions at the ICMP’s DNA…

Baghdad, 25 February 2020: A photo exhibition organized by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) and Iraqi institutions tasked with finding missing persons, including the Martyrs’ Foundation and the Ministry of Health was inaugurated this week.  The exhibition, which is supported through ICMP’s EU –funded Iraq program, highlights the magnitude of the missing persons issue in Iraq and showcases the Iraqi National Team’s intensive work to address it.

The exhibition, titled “Missing Persons Can Be Accounted For:  A Strong Partnership between ICMP and the Iraqi National Team”, also illustrates how ICMP is helping its partners in Iraq to build a sustainable and effective missing persons process.

“The photos in this joint exhibition tell a story of hope. They show that with cooperation from all involved, it is possible to find the missing and to help the families of the missing,” said Rasa Ostrauskaite, the Head of ICMP’s Iraq Program.

The Head…

Priština 31 January 2020: At a meeting of the Missing Persons Group (MPG) this week, representatives for institutions responsible for missing persons issues in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia made key decisions on joint activities in 2020 that will contribute to accounting for persons who are still missing as a result of the 1990s conflicts in former Yugoslavia.

The decisions MPG made at the 30 January meeting in Priština, convened by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), include:

• A series of bilateral meetings will be held to prioritise joint reconnaissance and excavation of potential locations of mass graves in 2020.
• MPG members will liaise with ICMP regarding forensic examination and biological sampling of NN (unidentified) cases of human remains in order to facilitate DNA analysis for the purpose of identification of missing persons.
• MPG will jointly mark the 2020 International Day of the Disappeared and issue…
  
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The Hague 17 January 2020: Authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina must fully implement the provisions of the country’s missing persons law, representatives of the BiH Missing Persons Institute (MPI) Advisory Board emphasized during a visit this week to the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands.

Full implementation of the Law on Missing Persons, which was created in 2004 would require the establishment of a verified BiH Central Record of Missing Persons and the creation of the BiH Fund for Families of the Missing. The Fund would provide financial support to families of the missing, regardless of the national or religious origin of the relative of the missing person, or the circumstances of the disappearance of the missing person.

“We want to work together for all victims. We want government institutions to work together and take responsibility,” said MPI Advisory Board Member Amir Kulaglic. “We have had…

The Hague, 20 December 2019: Mr. Marco Vinicius Pereira de Carvalho, President of the Brazil Special Commission on Political Dead and Missing Persons met with Director-General, Kathryne Bomberger of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) and the Director of ICMP’s Science and Technology Program, Dr. Thomas Parsons, to review steps made in identifying missing persons from the Perus Working Group.

Over the last two years, ICMP has assisted Brazil through cooperation with the Perus Working Group, which works to identify bodies that were interred in a clandestine mass grave in the Dom Bosco Cemetery in Perus, Sao Paulo, between 1971 and 1975, during the military government rule.  Over 700 cases have been examined and tested from this complex assemblage of human remains.  ICMP helped Brazil identify two high profile cases. The identifications are symbolically significant to families of the missing as they demonstrate the present government’s commitment to use…

The Hague, 19 December 2019: As part of its support to Iraqi authorities in developing capacity to handle missing persons cases, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) this week trained the leaders of the DNA lab at Iraq’s Medico-Legal Directorate (MLD).

The head of the lab, Mr. Mohammed Mashni Farhan, and deputy lab head Dr. Salim Shabaan Mahmood, were trained on using an automated puncher that will enable their lab to more than double the number of samples it processes a day. The ICMP, recently donated such a puncher to MLD, one of the Iraq’s main national agencies that are responsible for addressing the missing persons issue.

His Excellency, Hisham al Alawi, Ambassador of Iraq, staff from the Iraqi Embassy in the Netherlands, ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger and the ICMP Director of Science and Technology, Thomas Parsons, took part in the opening session of the training, which was supported by the European Union….

The Hague, 11 December 2019 –  To mark this week’s celebration of International Human Rights Day, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) organized a “Profiles of the Missing” discussion in The Hague today on the effort now underway to address the huge legacy of missing persons in Colombia.  

As many as 120,000 people are missing from five decades of conflict in Colombia, and all sectors of society have been affected. Disappearances have been perpetrated by state actors, paramilitary and guerrilla groups, and organized crime. Today’s “Profiles of the Missing” addressed the causes of the conflict, the impact of disappearances on society and the rule of law, and the central role that families of the missing can and must play in implementing key provisions of the 2016 Peace Agreement. 

Fourteen family members of missing persons and representatives of civil…