Bosnia Urged to Implement Missing Persons Law
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The authorities must ensure that major parts of the law which haven’t been implemented for nine years are now put into practice, the International Commission on Missing Persons said.
International Commission on Missing Persons director Kathryne Bomberger told a conference in Sarajevo on Thursday that the Bosnian authorities have achieved great success by finding and identifying two-thirds of the 30,000 people who disappeared during the 1992-95 war.
But she said that thousands of families were still waiting for the bodies of their loved ones to be found.
“In order to continue the search for missing persons, the [Bosnian] Institute for Missing Persons and the Bosnian prosecution, which carry out the activities of searching for persons, should be strengthened,” Bomberger said.
“Also, Bosnia needs to implement the Law on Missing Persons – especially in forming a centralised database of missing persons and creating a fund for support to families, so they could achieve some financial rights,” she added.
The Law on Missing Persons was passed in 2005 but major parts of it have still not been put into practice.
Bosnia’s chief prosecutor Goran Salihovic told the conference that over the past two years, the search for missing persons has improved, which has resulted in a large number of war crimes indictments.
“In the past two years, we have raised about 100 indictments for war crimes, and some of those indictments have been for complex cases, but for me, all crimes are the same and all criminals are the same,”said Salihovic.
He also said that the prosecution intended to get involved in the implementation of the Law on Missing Persons, explaining that he believes that the creation of a fund to assist victims’ families is “the most important issue”.
A report presented by the International Commission on Missing Persons at the conference meanwhile proposed that the Bosnian prosecution and Missing Persons Institute use satellite technology to search for mass graves, and also urged them to finish their review of 12 mortuaries in the country, where previously unidentified missing persons from the war could be found.
