Two-thirds of Missing Persons Found

Representatives of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina (INO), Commission for Detained and Missing Persons of the Croatian Government and the Commission for Missing Persons of the Serbian Government discussed the fact that almost 70% out of 40,000 persons who disappeared during the wars of the 1990s have been found.

At the meeting held on December 8 and 9, 2011, on Vlasic, the participants stressed the fact that the remaining cases of missing persons will be harder to find, “bearing in mind that the amount of additional information about the locations is decreasing”.

Participants discussed the need for a regional list of missing persons and bilateral agreements for dealing with cases of missing persons.

“We talked about ways of improving the search. Specifically, we made an agreement regarding joint reconnaissance, exchange of information about the locations, monitoring exhumations and identifications and other issues related to missing persons in all three countries. The submission of identified remains between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia was also agreed,” said Marko Jurisic, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the INO.

Participants supported the ICMP’s initiative to host a regional meeting in spring 2012, where measures to accelerate the search for missing persons and their implementation would be discussed.

Ivan Grujic, President of the Commission for Detained and Missing Persons of the Croatian Government, estimated this meeting as being extremely important for all families of missing persons from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia .

From November 2001, the ICMP has collected information from 89,401 family members of 29,131 missing persons and analyzed 36,364 bone samples. By comparing the DNA from blood and bone samples, ICMP has assisted in the identification of 16,475 missing people during the conflict.D.Dz.