Associations of Families of the Missing: No Reconciliation Without Truth

(Patria) - Organized by the Advisory Board of the Institute for Missing Persons of BiH and with the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross/Crescent in BiH, a central meeting of associations of families of missing persons was held today in Sarajevo, on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day.

The meeting, which presented the work of the Advisory Board over the past four years and the results achieved by the Institute for Missing Persons of BiH, was attended by representatives of a large number of associations of missing persons actively operating throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, representatives of the Institute for Missing Persons, the International Committee of the Red Cross/Crescent, the Red Cross/Crescent Society of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the International Commission on Missing Persons.



Aljonka Dželetović, Chairperson of the Advisory Board, presented all activities carried out during the four-year mandate, including meetings with government officials, round tables, cooperation with families of missing persons from other countries, and the commemoration of the International Day of Missing Persons in four cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

All activities, she emphasized, aimed to highlight the unresolved issue of missing persons and to hold accountable all those involved in this matter.

- Families of missing persons are left alone in their grief, and missing persons have been denied the right to death and a tombstone. Only through unity and solidarity can we exert pressure on the authorities and bring peace and dignity to all families of missing persons - said Dželetović.

Saliha Đuderija, Chairperson of the Collegium of Directors of the Institute for Missing Persons of BiH, stated that in BiH, there are 7,608 names on the list of missing persons, meaning that 7,500 missing persons are being searched for in our country, while 108 victims from our country are being sought in the region.

- The biggest problem remains the lack of accurate information about the locations of graves. Only by joining forces, especially with united families, can we move forward, can we find all the missing. Only then can we talk about reconciliation and overcoming the consequences of our past. A society that does not respect its dead will not respect its living either - said Đuderija.

The work of the Institute over the past four years, during the current mandate of the Advisory Board, was also presented to the families of missing persons.

- From the beginning of 2021 to the end of September 2024, Institute investigators went to the field 4,686 times. In the same period, 366 exhumations were carried out, and the remains of 275 victims were exhumed.

In less than four years, 393 victims have been identified - said, among others, Ranko Prodanović, Head of the Sector for Tracing, Exhumations, and Identification of the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina.



After the addresses of all participants and the presented reports, association members actively participated in the discussion regarding the challenges in the process of searching for missing persons and adopted a joint stance concerning the issues that require intensive work from all associations.

In this regard, several conclusions were adopted, calling for joint activities to:

- exert pressure on the BiH Prosecutor's Office for more efficient work and better cooperation with families;

- expedite the prosecution of those responsible for war crimes;

- accelerate the search of military and civilian archives in order to resolve the issue of missing persons;

- strengthen the material, technical, and personnel capacity of the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially investigators;

- continue activities of collecting reference blood samples to verify identifications made by the classical method;

- exert pressure on political actors to begin working on amendments to the Law on Missing Persons of BiH, primarily concerning the Fund and support for associations of missing persons.