During 2025, from January until the end of December, 72 victims of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina were identified. These are victims whose remains were discovered in previous and earlier years and who, decades after their disappearance, were finally restored their dignity, identity, and names, after which their remains were handed over to their families for burial, Emza Fazlić, Spokesperson of the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina, told FENA.
Lowest Number of Exhumed Remains to Date
In the same period, the remains of 45 victims of the war were exhumed. According to Fazlić, this represents the lowest number of exhumed remains recorded so far, which is primarily the result of a lack of accurate information regarding the locations of graves of victims who are still being sought.
There are still 7,581 missing persons from the war being searched for in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the process of searching for victims and verifying all information related to potential grave sites, investigators of the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who operate through five regional offices across the country, conducted 804 field operations, Fazlić noted.
During this period, 87 exhumations were carried out; however, unfortunately, not all resulted in the recovery of human remains. In fact, more than half of the exhumations were unsuccessful, indicating that information regarding potential grave locations often proved to be inaccurate.
Concealment of Information
Fazlić emphasized that the concealment of information remains one of the greatest challenges in the process of searching for missing persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Accurate information about the locations of mass graves, as well as collective and individual graves that still exist, continues to be withheld.
“We are certain that there are people among us who possess accurate information, yet they still choose to remain silent and carry these heavy secrets with them. Meanwhile, families of missing persons continue to live with pain, uncertainty, and constant anticipation of information about the remains of their loved ones,” Fazlić said.
She added that during the past year, 119 re-exhumations were conducted in order to associate subsequently discovered remains with victims who had already been identified and buried.
Regional Cooperation
According to Fazlić, regional cooperation has been of particular importance over the past year in the process of searching for missing persons, especially cooperation between the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Commission for Missing Persons of Montenegro. Through this cooperation, members of the Klapuh family were finally identified using DNA analysis and subsequently transferred under the jurisdiction of the Institute.
The remains of two members of the Klapuh family from Foča, the mother Ferida and her daughter Sena, were preliminarily identified using DNA analysis after their remains were exhumed in June this year in Nikšić. The exhumation was carried out based on operational information and a formal request submitted to Montenegro by the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Hasan Klapuh, his wife Ferida, and their daughter Sena were killed in July 1992 in Plužine while fleeing the horrors of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, after which their bodies were thrown from a bridge in that area.
Through operational activities, the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in whose records the Klapuh family is listed as missing, obtained information indicating that their bodies might be buried at an unmarked location in Voja Deretić Street in Nikšić. The remains of the mother and daughter were handed over to the Institute at the Rača border crossing at the end of December. The Institute will proceed with organizing the final identification in cooperation with the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, after which the remains will be returned to the victims’ family.
The search for Hasan Klapuh will continue in the Nikšić area, more specifically at the micro-location of the old Muslim cemetery, which will be searched again and where the exhumation zone will be expanded in an effort to locate the remains of the third member of the Klapuh family.
Nearly 80 Percent of Missing Persons Found
Fazlić stated that, within the framework of regional cooperation through the Group for Missing Persons, the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina will also carry out certain activities in cooperation with the Commission for Missing Persons of the Government of Serbia in the coming period, including joint field operations on the territory of Serbia.
“The process of searching for missing persons and the submission of new reports to the Institute remains open. During 2025, the Institute received a total of 14 reports, including 11 new requests for missing persons for whom no prior records existed,” Fazlić said.
At the same time, the verification process of missing persons reports is ongoing. During the past year, 57 reports were verified, while a total of 29,945 reports have undergone verification to date.
“Although nearly 80 percent of the total number of missing persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been found, this figure means very little to the families of those whose loved ones have not yet been located. We are obligated to persist in this process until the very end, even though the search for missing persons is being conducted under increasingly complex, difficult, and demanding circumstances,” Fazlić emphasized.
Shedding Light on the Fate of Every Missing Person
Fazlić concluded that the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina remains committed to its most important mission: searching for missing persons and locating every victim whose remains are still being sought.
“Behind every name listed as missing stands a human life, a family waiting, and pain that does not fade. Our obligation is not only professional, but deeply moral: to shed light on the fate of every missing person. We believe that families’ right to truth and justice does not expire, and that peace cannot be built without confronting the past. Guided by this belief, we continue our work, aware that the discovery and identification of victims form the foundation of dignity, remembrance, and justice, both for families and for society as a whole,” Fazlić said in an interview with FENA.
