The International Commission for Missing Persons presented today in Sarajevo the results so far regarding the search for missing persons in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The ICMP head for Western Balkans Matthew Holliday said on that occasion that Bosnia and Herzegovina did make an incredible step towards the process of looking for and identifying missing persons, but that the job is not over yet. He added that they are still searching for nine thousand persons.
So far, they have found and identified around two thirds of the total number of missing persons and around 14,000 persons are identified with the DNA method which was secured by ICMP.
“The job of the Institute and the Prosecutor’s Office in BiH is far from being over,” he said.
Holliday said that in the publication, which was presented today, recommendations are contained on how to continue with the process. The first one is the fact that the Missing Persons Institute in BiH must be strengthened, as well as the Prosecutor’s Office.
“The Council of Minster must take full responsibility for the Missing Persons Institute in BiH. We are witnesses to an annual reduction of the budget of the Institute. That has to stop. The budget must be increased in order to continue with the work,” he said.
Holliday thinks that the Institute should be more transparent in its activities and that it should publish concrete reports of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He reminded that the Institute established a joint Council of Ministers of BiH and the International Commission for Missing Persons, but that the Council, i.e. the government “must take full responsibility and control over the Missing Persons Institute in BiH.”
Director of the Institute for Missing Persons Amor Mašović says that is primarily necessary “to convince the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina convinced that the problem of missing persons in the plans and programs should be in place that it deserves.”
As an example, take Croatia and Serbia where “all their conversations begin and end by solving the problem of the missing persons, although in these countries, this problem is significantly lower than in BiH.”
President of the Association “Mothers of Srebrenica and Žepa enclaves” Munira Subašić, who was present at the presentation of the publication on Missing Persons, says that ICMP done enough in this area, and everything else is default.
“I think that the Prosecution is most responsible for all this. Criminals (regardless of ethnicity) should be asked where graves are, and if they don’t tells us, sentence should be increased. They would all speak then,” Subašić said.
The publication of ICMP summarized the work of all institutions that were engaged in the process of tracing missing persons with the recommendations. After Sarajevo, it will be presented in Mostar and Banja Luka.
(Source: Fena)
