ICMP to Present Report on Missing Persons in BiH on Thursday: Still Searching for 10,000 People

The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) will publish on Thursday at the Hotel Europa in Sarajevo a comprehensive report titled “Persons Missing as a Result of Armed Conflicts in the 1990s: A Review of the Situation”, which discusses efforts to find and identify missing persons from Bosnia and Herzegovina, reports the Bosnian news agency Patria (NAP).

The report provides an overview of the steps taken towards empowering families of missing persons and establishing institutions that will continue the search for the missing in the long term, as well as scientific innovations that have made enormous progress in the number of identifications.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, around ten thousand missing persons are still being searched for, who lost all trace during the aggression against BiH from 1992 to 1995, writes Patria. The bones of a large number of missing persons are hidden in undiscovered graves in BiH, or in other places.

At the beginning of July this year, the film "I Miss You" by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) was also shown, which brought to the forefront a topic that speaks not only about the missing, but also about the suffering their families endure in the process of searching for them.

During the presentation of the ICMP report on missing persons, on Thursday, for the first time, all information about missing persons will be available, combined into one detailed, systematic written whole.

The report to be presented in Sarajevo provides documented information about the search for the missing throughout BiH, removes ambiguities, and presents the facts in an accessible manner. Finally, the report gives clear recommendations on what needs to be done to ensure the continuation of the search for the remaining missing persons.

The presentation will be led by ICMP Director Kathryne Bomberger, and she will be joined by the UK Ambassador to BiH Edward Ferguson, the Swiss Ambassador to BiH Heinrich Maurer, the Chief Prosecutor of BiH Goran Salihović, and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Missing Persons of BiH Amor Masović.

Representatives of associations of families of missing persons and civil society organizations will also be present at the presentation. Together, they will explore the most important elements of the report and discuss future steps, reports NAP.