29 September 2020: On Thursday 1 October, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) is inviting online visitors to a virtual open house that offers insights into the organization’s work at its headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands.
The virtual visit includes an introduction by Director-General Kathryne Bomberger, an interactive webinar on ICMP’s support to families of the missing, and a virtual tour of the laboratory where ICMP scientists extract and analyze DNA.
The event is part of Just Peace Month, an initiative by the city of the Hague to highlight the many organizations related to justice and peace that are based in the city.
ICMP works with governments to help them account for missing persons, including by offering support in advanced DNA analysis to identify human remains, and it works with families of the missing to help them access their rights to truth, justice and reparations. In the former Yugoslavia, the organization has helped authorities account for 70 percent of the 40,000 persons who were missing at the end of the conflict, and it continues to support efforts to account for those who remain missing.
ICMP currently also works in Albania, Iraq, Mexico, and Colombia, as well as with the Syrian diaspora. In addition, it has a program to support efforts to account for migrants and refugees who have disappeared before, during or after journeys to Europe. Learning and development across all programs is developed and coordinated by the ICMP Wim Kok Center for Excellence and Learning, which is part of the ICMP’s Hague headquarters.
The program starts at 15:30 CET and ends at 17:15 CET. Register here to get an email with a personal access link.
About ICMP
ICMP is a treaty-based intergovernmental organization with Headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands. Its mandate is to secure the cooperation of governments and others in locating missing persons from conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organized crime, irregular migration and other causes and to assist them in doing so. It is the only international organization tasked exclusively to work on the issue of missing persons.