The Hague, 22 January 2024 – At a meeting facilitated by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) this weekend in Istanbul, Türkiye, representatives of Syrian civil society organizations discussed measures to account for missing persons from Syria. Proposals include bringing together families of the missing and CSOs across political and conflict lines; promoting measures to ensure that States hosting Syrian refugees work with Syrian groups, including supporting data collection from refugees; and undertaking systematic investigations inside Syria by developing cooperation with, and among, Syrian human rights and first responder organizations. This last proposal includes human identification work undertaken to the highest scientific standards. Other recommendations include the creation of a Syrian law on missing persons, the establishment of an inter-ministerial Commission, and the development of a Syrian Central Record on missing persons.
21 March 2024, Ottawa, Unceded Algonquin Territory, Ontario: Canada can take effective steps to support First Nations, Metis, and Inuit rights holders as they seek justice and accountability for the death or disappearance of children in the former Indian Residential School System, Kathryne Bomberger, the Director-General of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), said today.
Tirana, 16 October 2023: Despite political tensions in the Western Balkans, significant progress has been made in accounting for those who are still missing from the conflicts of the 1990s. In a report presented today at the Berlin Process Summit in Tirana, the Western Balkans Missing Persons Group (MPG) highlighted practical results that have been achieved through focused multilateral cooperation among responsible government agencies.
Stuttgart, 15 November 2023: The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) has conducted a joint Pilot Project with the Medico-Legal Directorate (MLD) of the Iraqi Ministry of Health and the Directorate for Protection and Affairs of Mass Graves (MGD) of the Iraqi Martyrs’ Foundation to collect DNA reference samples from Iraqi Yazidi families of the missing residing in Germany.
12 December 2023, Kyiv – The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) has announced a donation of material and equipment to the value of EUR 225,000 to support efforts to account for missing persons as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Pristina 11 October 2023: In a significant move aimed at bolstering local capacities in the DNA testing related to missing persons, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has donated essential equipment to the Kosovo Forensic Agency (KFA).
Sarajevo, 9 October 2023: In a significant step towards strengthening the process of locating and identifying missing persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Delegation of European Union to BIH and Embassy of Sweden to BIH have donated essential equipment to the Missing Persons Institute of BiH as part of its continued support to the Institute and the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).
The Hague, 15 September 2023: The Ukrainian government’s commitment to efforts to fulfill its obligations to families of the missing should be recognized and applauded, the Chairperson of the International Commission on Missing Person (ICMP), Knut Vollebaek, said on Thursday.
Baghdad, 18 August 2023: On 15 August 2014, in the village of Kojo in the Sinjar region of Iraq, Yazidi residents were massacred by Da’esh; women and children were abducted. Many of the victims are still missing.
Hanoi, Vietnam 26 July 2023 – During the week, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) and the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) have hosted a series of events aimed at enhancing efforts to account for the large number of missing persons and unidentified human remains from the Vietnam-American War. The project is funded and generously supported by US Agency for International Development.
Videos on ICMP and the global challenge of missing persons
ICMP’s Online Inquiry Center (OIC) is a tool to provide information or obtain information about a missing person. It is an online resource that can be accessed by families of the missing and others.
Every year, millions of people around the world go missing as a result of conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organized crime, irregular migration, and other causes. Be part of a growing international organization that is dedicated to tackling this issue.
ICMP is a treaty-based international 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.
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