The war in Ukraine is not calming down and elements of war crimes have already been recorded, as well as footage of mass graves containing the bodies of killed civilians to be exhumed and identified, and the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina has offered its help because their search model is recognized as the most successful in the whole world.
As Emza Fazlic, a spokeswoman for the Institute for Missing Persons of BiH, told Fena news agency, their search model is applied today in those societies that have gone through the same experiences of war and post-war as Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina a few years ago (at the time when this issue was topical in Krim) had a visit from a delegation from Ukraine who wanted to have more information about the process of searching for missing persons in BiH. .
All experiences transferred
At that meeting, the delegation from Ukraine shared all the experiences of the Institute when it comes to searching for missing persons, they point out from this institution.
The delegation was then presented with the most successful model for searching for missing persons in the world created and implemented in BiH, starting with key things necessary for this process such as compiling an accurate list of missing persons, then the relevant law modeled on the Missing Persons Act. BiH, the establishment of a professional institution that would deal with this issue, such as the Institute and the way of working in the field, procedures for exhumations and identifications.
“We recently received a request from Ukraine for technical assistance related to the DNA identification process that the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) is actually doing for the Institute. We gave them certain recommendations and sent them to ICMP and certainly offered them our expertise for everything they need to use all the experiences we had in BiH, thanks to which almost 80 percent of missing persons have been found so far, all to help in establishing a system that will be in charge of finding missing persons in Ukraine,” says Fazlic.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, more than 25,500 victims of the last war have been exhumed so far. Of that number, about 24,300 missing have been identified and handed over to their families while a number of victims are still being identified who have been exhumed but not officially identified.
Exhumations have been going on for 30 years since the start of the war and there are still remains of victims who disappeared at the time, and BiH is still searching for 7,628 missing persons, and resolving the missing persons is very important for the reconciliation process in BiH and the region.
“Families who have lost their loved ones have the right to know what happened to them, to receive their remains and bury them with dignity and have at least that satisfaction, to know where their loved ones are, to go to the grave or grave and say a prayer , light a candle. Only after facing the past and accepting it, coexistence and reconciliation in these areas is possible,” adds Fazlic.
The issue of resolving the problem of missing persons is very important for the reconciliation process in the region, she stressed, but we are witnessing very strained relations between Croatia and Serbia, precisely on the issue of missing persons, and recently the problem between Belgrade and Pristina.
“If this issue is not resolved effectively, it is possible that tensions will grow, frustrations in families who have lost their loved ones will also grow and there are fears that all this will escalate at some point,” said Fazlic, finally emphasizing the importance finding the missing in the reconciliation
