Conference on missing persons in Geneva, destinies of 1658 persons still unknown (RTS, Tanjug, Blic, Novosti, KosSev Portal)
RTS and other Serbian media reported about the conference on missing persons in Geneva. More than 6.000 persons went missing during the conflict in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, and out of this number 1.658 are still listed as missing, participants at the roundtable discussion held in Geneva on 29th and 30th June stated.
As UNMIK statement said, since March 2004, the Working Group on Missing Persons related to events in Kosovo provided support in the process of shedding the light on destinies and finding missing persons and informed their families in line with that.
“Since May 2017, 1.658 persons are still listed as missing in Kosovo,” the press release stated.
Members of the Working Group on Missing Persons, UNMIK representatives, International Committee of Red Cross, UN Working Group on Missing Persons and Forcible Disappearances participated at the event, aiming to identify challenges and ways how to find 1658 missing persons from Kosovo.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad el Husein and Special Representative of the UN Secretary General Zahir Tanin opened the conference.
KoSSev portal also reported about the main recommendations identified to move the process forward. Those include:
- To reinforce inclusion and participation of missing persons families’ representatives;
- To intensify efforts for better access to archives of local, national and international stakeholders;
- Discussion before the end of the year in consultations with the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Committee of Red Cross on progress made since the last meeting.