Families of 7,561 victims still don't know how their loved ones perished: 'The issue of missing persons must be urgent'

(Patria) - At the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH today, organized by the Advisory Board of the Institute for Missing Persons (INO) BiH and with the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Day of Families was marked under the slogan "Families without answers: Life between loss and hope".

Through a particularly emotional event, during which representatives of the families of missing persons shared their testimonies about the daily struggle with uncertainty, they wanted their plea to be heard by the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

They also wanted to draw attention to the fact that the families of 7,561 victims are still living, waiting for any information on how their loved ones perished.

- Families of the missing do not ask for much, they ask for truth, dignity, and not to be forgotten. We feel that the institutions are slow, as if the families' pain is not urgent.

Time passes for the system, but it stands still for the families, and it shouldn't be that way. Because, for some people, a missing person is their whole world. Every family has the right to an answer, we are not asking for pity, we are asking for accountability.

For me, the International Day of Families is not just a reminder of what I have, it is a reminder of what I am missing, of the voice I no longer hear, and of the one who is still waiting somewhere to be found.

We want to clearly tell the institutions of BiH that the issue of families of the missing must be urgent because a society that does not search for its missing ultimately loses itself - said, among other things, the Chairperson of the Advisory Board of INO BiH, Midheta Kaloper.

Nikola Perišić, Chairperson of the Collegium of Directors of INO BiH, stated at the press conference that the message from today's gathering is clear: families must have the right to truth, justice, and dignity, primarily the right to the truth about the fate of their loved ones, about the place and circumstances of their disappearance, as well as the right to receive their remains in order to bury them with dignity.

- Today's gathering is a good opportunity to send a message to the entire Bosnian-Herzegovinian public, especially to the authorities, to do everything and help so that the search for the missing can be brought to an end and so that we, as a society, can turn to the future.

We thank the families who have made a great contribution to the smooth operation of the Institute and a great contribution to mutual understanding, tolerance, and support - said Perišić.

In addition to the families of missing persons, the commemoration of today's date was attended by representatives of the diplomatic corps - Ambassador of Azerbaijan Vilayat Gulyev, Deputy Ambassador of Great Britain James Hamilton Harding, Ante Miliša from the Embassy of the USA.

Representatives of BiH institutions were also present, namely the Presidency of BiH, the Council of Ministers of BiH, the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of BiH, the Prosecutor's Office of BiH, the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), the Institution of the Ombudsman for Human Rights of BiH, and international organizations - the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Commission on Missing Persons, UN Women in BiH, the United Nations Office in BiH, and TRIAL International.

In their addresses, they offered unequivocal support to the families of missing persons, but also a promise that they would stand by them and that, each within their own domain, they would do everything to ensure that the families of the missing achieve their elementary right - to know what happened to their loved ones.