To date, 70 percent of missing persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been identified after the armed conflict in the nineties. According to available data, the total registered number of the missing is 31,500 and of that number, 87 percent are men, it was said today in Sarajevo in the presentation of the publication entitled ” Missing Persons from the Armed Conflict of the 1990s: A Stocktaking,” compiled by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).
This book-length ICMP report brings together in a single, detailed and systematic narrative all of the available information on missing persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina, providing documentary information on the search for the missing in every part of the country.
The publication is issued in the year that has been declared the Year of missing persons, and brings detailed information about the search for the missing in the past two decades and gives recommendations for the steps that need to be made in order to continue the search for the missing.
ICMP Director General Kathryne Bomberger reminded today that ICMP works all over the world, but that BiH is the first country in the world that has formed a Missing Persons Institute and is the first country to adopt the Law on Missing Persons, which needs to be fully implemented.
She added that one of the recommendations given in the publication is an effort to strengthen institutions in BiH dealing with these issues. BiH must fully implement the Law on Missing Persons, which provides for the Central Records on Missing Persons, as well as for a Fund benefiting the families of the missing.
She pointed out that in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had the highest number of missing persons, more than 30,000, almost 23,000 have been found and that this is so far the largest number of found and identified persons after an armed conflict anywhere in the world, and most of them were identified through DNA analysis.
She reiterated that in the process of search for missing persons we should not talk about discrimination against certain ethnic groups because those who are discriminated against in this process are certainly women who are left alone to fight for their children and livelihoods after their husbands were killed.
“Progress has been made, but it is important not to stop the process of search for more than 8,000 missing and providing closure to their families and allowing them to bury their loved ones with dignity,” said Bomberger and added that when talking about the missing, we talk about those who have been abducted, killed and buried in an unknown place, and not those who died in the fighting.
Since there are some issues related to the reliability of some implemented identification processes, before introduction of analysis of isolated DNA, Bomberger says that it is estimated that there are more than 8,000 such cases, but the process has already begun.
Chief Prosecutor Goran Salihović said today that the BiH Prosecution will persevere in the search for missing and bringing those responsible for the crimes, even though BiH is a country that has a large number of war criminals, noting that in the last two years the largest number of those indicted for war crimes have been prosecuted since the State Prosecution exists.
“New prosecutors have been engaged in dealing with war crimes. Out of 264 indictments filed in 11 years since the existence of the Prosecutor’s Office, in the last two years we filed 100 indictments, or 35 percent,” explained Salihović, adding that the Prosecutor’s Office has initiated 700 cases which include 5,200 people.
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Missing Persons Institute of BiH Amor Mašović recalled that after the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina it was almost unthinkable that we would find such a large number of the missing and complete their identification, especially after the mass graves have been discovered that hid the bodies of Srebrenica victims since their remains were found in several mass graves, up to five of them, with distance between them being up to 40 kilometers.
The first missing person was registered 23 years ago, and today Mašović believes it is a great success that 23,000 persons have been found and almost the same number has been identified.
(Source: Fena)
