International Commission on Missing Persons

The Hague, the Netherlands, 21 June 2021 – A recent proposal from 19 civil society organizations based in Antioquia, Colombia, that offers a roadmap for coordinating institutions involved in the search for victims of enforced disappearances is a welcome initiative that should be acted upon so that missing persons are found, the Director-General of the International Commission for Missing Persons, Kathryne Bomberger, said today.

The proposal includes a draft decree to create a Working Group on Enforced Disappearances from Antioquia Department that would delineate roles and responsibilities among the involved institutions. The organizations delivered the proposal to regional and national authorities including the Antioquia governor, the Medellin mayor and the regional prosecutor’s office, as well as national institutions including the Unit for the Search for Missing Persons (UBPD).

“Colombia has legal and institutional frameworks in place for efforts to account for its many missing persons….

Baghdad, 12 June 2021 – Seven years ago, Da’esh fighters executed an estimated 1,700 Iraqi air force recruits at Camp Speicher near Tikrit, 140 kilometres northwest of Baghdad. Speaking today, the Head of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) program in Iraq, Alexander Hug, said it was “essential to continue the efforts of the National Team, the Mass Graves Directorate (MGD) and the Medico-Legal Directorate of the Ministry of Health (MLD), together with ICMP to account for those who are still missing as a result of the massacre and to bring those who were responsible to justice.”

Since 2016 ICMP has provided operational support to Iraqi experts in addressing ISIS crimes, by safeguarding and excavating gravesites in Sinjar and mass graves in Tikrit, including the graves at Camp Speicher. This has included providing training, guidance, and onsite operational support for the multi-agency work at Camp Speicher. ICMP supported three phases of fieldwork by the National Team in 2016 and 2017, during which…

The Hague, 8 June 2021 – The verdict handed down today by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (UNMICT) in the case of Ratko Mladić, following legal proceedings that have lasted for more than nine years, is an important affirmation of the rule of law, ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger said.

The UNMICT upheld the conviction of Mladić for the genocide in the area of Srebrenica in 1995, war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Mladić, who was the Bosnian Serb commander during the conflict, has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

“Those who killed unarmed civilians and those who facilitated the conditions for these crimes, wrongly believed that they could erase their crimes through hiding the mortal remains of their victims, said Bomberger.

ICMP’s work, in particular scientific evidence establishing the identity of victims from the 1990s conflicts, contributed to an incontestable narrative of genocide and other war crimes. The evidence has contributed…

The Hague, 31 May 2021 – A new International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) campaign titled Act in their Absence  encourages Syrians to report missing persons to the ICMP’s Online Inquiry Center (OIC) as part of efforts to help find Syria’s missing. Families located anywhere in the world can use the OIC, and Europe-based Syrian families with missing relatives will this summer be invited to provide genetic reference samples to assist in locating missing persons and reuniting families.

The project activities are conducted by ICMP, with the support of the German Federal Foreign Office and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, more than 100,000 persons have gone missing, according to a 2021 UN report. Syrians and others have gone missing due to atrocities committed as part of the ongoing fighting, human rights violations, including summary executions, enforced disappearances, kidnapping, arbitrary detention…

The Hague, 12 April 2021 – Syrian civil society representatives and other key actors called for the immediate release of all who are missing following arbitrary detentions in Syria during a recent roundtable discussion hosted by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).

The 8 April 2021 discussion addressed the harrowing circumstances of detention in Syria and the continued political challenges surrounding efforts to account for detainees held primarily by the Syrian government, but also by other parties to the conflict. Participants underlined the need to address the immediate need to know the location of detainees and other missing persons and noted the importance of accountability and justice for both the victims and their families.

“The families of the detained and missing are at a breaking point,” said ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger. “The measures in place to address detention are not working. We need to explore avenues for new ways to address…