International Day of the Missing Marked: Nearly 7,000 People Still Sought

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The International Day of the Missing was marked in Bosnia and Herzegovina today with a simple question: „Where is he/she?“. Volunteers of the Red Cross Society of BiH and 18 associations of families of missing persons distributed over 3,500 dark balloons marked with that question across the country today.

The balloons represent the heavy burden of uncertainty that has accompanied the families of the missing in their daily lives for over 20 years. By carrying them, citizens had the opportunity to express solidarity with the families, symbolically taking on part of their burden. On the occasion of this day, some significant locations, such as the Sarajevo City Hall, were illuminated last night with the question „Where is he/she?“ to remind of the needs and rights of families of missing persons.

According to the records of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), around 6,700 people are still being sought in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the search process has significantly slowed down recently. The ICRC will provide additional support over the next five years to speed up the process.

- Our strategy envisages a more intensive search of international archives for new information on grave locations, providing psychosocial support to families of the missing, strengthening domestic forensic capacities, and other activities - said Željko Filipović, Head of the ICRC Delegation in Sarajevo.

However, speeding up the search process and supporting families requires genuine will and joint effort, both in Bosnia and Herzegovina and across the region. Under international and domestic law, families have the right to know what happened to their missing members, and states have the ultimate responsibility to support them and provide answers.

- All involved actors, especially authorities across the region, must intensify their efforts, because the current situation is not sufficient to fulfill the assumed obligations - Filipović emphasized.

The Red Cross has been involved in the search process from the very beginning, paying special attention to psychosocial support for families of missing persons. In 2017 alone, over 5,000 family members benefited from 16 such projects. As a neutral and independent organization, the ICRC has access to international archives and uses them to find information for the humanitarian purpose of locating missing persons. In the last two years, over 50,000 pages of documentation related to the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been processed, and relevant findings have been submitted to the competent authorities for further analysis and potential action. As recent discoveries show, further investment in these efforts can yield significant results. The ICRC will soon also begin providing financial support to second and third cycle students from various scientific disciplines who focus their research on the issue of missing persons.

The marking of the International Day of the Missing in Sarajevo was also attended by representatives of associations of missing persons, the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of BiH, and the Chairman of the College of the Institute for Missing Persons of BiH, Amor Mašović.