International Commission on Missing Persons

The Hague, 28 October 2019: The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) stands ready to enhance its support for Iraq’s efforts to address the country’s huge issue of missing persons in an effective and impartial way, ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger said today.

Ms Bomberger was speaking during a visit by Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohamed Ali Alhakim to ICMP’s Headquarters in The Hague. Foreign Minister Alhakim was accompanied by Iraq’s Ambassador to the Netherlands Hisham Al-Alawi and senior officials.

Director-General Bomberger said she hoped it will be possible to finalize and implement a Memorandum of Understanding between ICMP and the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs as soon as possible so that ICMP can step up the support it has already been providing to Iraq for more than a decade.

“ICMP’s goal is to help Iraq establish a sustainable process to find all missing persons, regardless of their ethnic, religious or national origin,’ Ms…

Baghdad, 24 October 2019: The Iraqi National Team with the support of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) has completed a Data and Reference Sample Collection campaign in Qadiya Camp for internally displaced persons, in Duhok, northern Iraq.  

A large number of people living in the camp belong to the Yezidi community from the Sinjar area of northern Iraq, which was overrun by Da’esh in 2014.  

During the campaign, blood reference samples were collected from relatives of the missing, and new missing person cases were reported. The National Team crossed–checked information on more than 400 missing persons, which may now be used as part of the process of identifying human remains that were exhumed in July and August from mass graves in the village of Kocho in Sinjar.  It is hoped that the…

Baghdad, 19 October 2019: The Mass Graves Directorate (MGD) of the Martyrs’ Foundation, the Medico-Legal Directorate (MLD) of the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs (MoMAA) of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq, with the help of the International Commission on Mission Persons (ICMP), have launched a campaign to collect genetic reference samples from families of the missing in Northern Iraq.

The collection of samples, which will take place in the Qadiya IDP camp in Duhok Governorate, began today, and during the campaign, the Iraqi institutions will be supported by staff from ICMP’s Data Coordination and Civil Society Initiatives department.

Reference sample collection is an essential component in the current process of identifying human remains that have been exhumed from mass graves in the village of Kocho, in Sinjar. This exercise will also serve as a model for future excavations.

The campaign was launched at a seminar…

Hagë, 16 tetor: Një delegacion i përfaqësuesve të institucioneve të Kosovës që punojnë për çështjen e personave të zhdukur ka vizituar Selinë e Komisionit Ndërkombëtar për Personat e Zhdukur (ICMP) në Hagë për të diskutuar masat për të përmirësuar procesin e llogaridhënjes të personave të zhdukur nga konflikti i Kosovës.

Takimi rezultoi me katër përfundime kryesore:

• Institucionet e Kosovës do të përfshijnë Gjurmuesin e Vendvarrimeve të ICMP në faqet e internetit të institucioneve përkatëse për të rritur sigurimin e informacionit për vendndodhjet e varrezave të jashtligjshme në mënyrë anonime, ose të nënshkruar;
• Delegacioni vlerësoi pozitivisht përfitimet e përdorimit të Sistemit të Menaxhimit të Bazave të Dhënave të Identifikimit (iDMS) bazuar në cloud të ICMP, i cili mbledh, ruan, mbron dhe shkëmben të dhëna për personat e zhdukur në mënyrë të sigurt. Delegacioni ra dakord të merr një vendim për nënshkrimin e një Marrëveshjeje për licencën e përdoruesit fundor në periudhën…
  
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The Hague, 16 October: A delegation of representatives of Kosovo institutions that work on the issue of missing persons has visited the Headquarters of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in The Hague to discuss measures to enhance the process of accounting for missing persons from the Kosovo conflict.

The meeting resulted in four major outcomes:

• Kosovo institutions will include the ICMP’s Site Locator on relevant institutions’ websites in order to increase the provision of information on locations of clandestine gravesites anonymously, or signed;
• The delegation positively assessed the benefits of using ICMP’s cloud-based, Integrated Database Management System (iDMS) which collects, stores, protects and shares data on missing persons securely. The delegation agreed to bring a decision on signing an End User License Agreement in the forthcoming period;
• The delegation embraced measures for ensuring greater domestic ownership of the process to enhance the sustainability of DNA-based identifications;
• The delegation…
  
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Sarajevo, 8 October: A group of high school students and teachers from Hulebäcksgymnasiet in Mölnlycke, Sweden, visited the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) program in Bosnia and Herzegovina today to learn about ICMP’s work and about the missing persons issue in the Western Balkans.

During their visit, the students learned about ICMP’s cross-cutting programs to support the development of networks of civil society organizations that advocate for truth, justice and the rights of family members of missing persons. They were also briefed on ICMP’s support for international and domestic legislative initiatives to account for the missing, based on democratic processes and the rule of law.

The students visited Tuzla, where the Podrinje Identification Project (PIP), a facility specifically created to assist in the identification of persons missing from the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide, is located. ICMP Senior Forensic Anthropologist Dragana Vucetic explained the meticulous process of identifying victims of the genocide….

Zagreb, 17 September 2019: Today in Zagreb, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) organized, with the participation of representatives of the Directorate for Detained and Missing of the Ministry of Croatian Veterans, an info-sharing meeting in Zagreb with 30 representatives of missing persons family associations from the Republic of Croatia.

This was the second in a series of meetings with families of the missing, organized to share information about the missing persons process on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. The first meeting was held with families from Bosnia and Herzegovina in January 2019.

The meetings are part of a two-year project supported by the Government of the United Kingdom and being implemented by ICMP, to renew the effort to account for 12,000 people who are still missing throughout the region. Countries in the region have formally undertaken to work together as the regional Missing Persons Group, maintaining a process…

Sarajevo, 30 August: Today, International Day of the Disappeared, families of the missing all around the world are calling for action to account for those who have disappeared as a consequence of conflict, natural disasters, crime, irregular migration and other causes.

In Sarajevo this morning, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in cooperation with the BIH Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees, installed a temporary artwork representing missing persons in front of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina to highlight the issue and to call for the implementation of effective strategies to address it.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, more than 70 percent of those who were missing at the end of the conflict have been accounted for, the highest rate of missing persons case resolution in any post-conflict society anywhere in the world – but many people are still missing.

“The families of at least 7,000 missing persons continue to…