The Detektor portal of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN BiH) is starting work on a database of children missing during the war, for whom parents are still searching. The database will include individual testimonies from parents or other family members searching for missing children, their photographs, stories, and items left behind. Detektor is calling on parents and family members to share stories about when and how the children went missing when they were last seen, and whether there is an active search for them.
By creating a database with profiles of children and all available information, which will be accessible as an online multimedia platform, we hope to contribute to the lasting preservation of memories of the children’s lives. This includes storing stories about their lives, wishes, favorite toys, future plans – which were so violently interrupted – and the uncertainty their families continue to endure decades later, as they have not yet found the remains of their little ones.
The online platform aims to raise public awareness about missing children to encourage institutions to make greater efforts to find them, as well as individuals – who have information about graves – to share information with parents and investigators.
From April 30th, 1991, to February 14th, 1996, more than 1.000 children under the age of 18 went missing in BiH. Nearly three decades after the war, the remains of 373 minors are still being sought.
Among them are some of the 29 missing babies who were killed before they reached one year of age. So far, a total of 917 children have been exhumed, identified, and returned to their families.
The largest number of minors – 445 – were exhumed in the Srebrenica area. They were victims of the genocide committed in 1995. A large number of children were also exhumed in the Donje Podrinje area, including Vlasenica, Zvornik, Srebrenica, Bratunac, and Sekovici, specifically 150 children who were killed before the genocide. In the Krajina area, the remains of 128 children have been exhumed.
The largest number of missing minors are still being sought in the Donje Podrinje – 113 children – and in the Gornje Podrinje where the remains of 83 children are being sought, while in the Krajina area, the remains of 64 children are being searched for.
The biggest problem in the search for the missing, according to 15 investigators from the Institute for Missing Persons, who are still searching for over 7.000 missing persons in BiH, is the lack of quality information about grave locations, Detektor writes.
E.Dz.
