South African Republic
From 1960 to 1994, political violence resulted in the forced disappearance of around 2,000 people in South Africa.
A major cause was the program of moving non-white residents out of white neighborhoods, as well as government crackdowns on protestors and dissidents. Until the end of apartheid, no large-scale effort was made to address the issue of the missing.
Since then, resolving the fate of the disappeared has been seen as a key element in the Truth and Reconciliation process and the long-term effort to remedy injustices committed during the apartheid era.
ICMP has cooperated with the South African Missing Persons Task Team of the Office of the National Prosecuting Authority and has provided DNA testing and DNA identification Match Reports on victims of forced disappearance. ICMP has also cooperated – in particularly challenging cases – with the South African Police Service’s (SAPS) Victim Identification Unit for DNA analysis of cases of unidentified human remains.
