“It’s yet another sad reminder of the collective failure” in protecting people in wars and crises, stressed the director general of the ICRC,Pierre Krähenbühl.
The person in charge spoke these words at the inauguration of the fourth International Conference for Relatives of Missing Personswhich included the remote participation of members of 900 affected families caused by this scourge in more than 50 countries.
“The presence of all of you here today already shows the scale of this tragedy”, lamented the director general of the ICRC, at the beginning of the conference that will take place over three days.
This increase in the number of missing people is due, he explained, to the increasing number of conflicts, migration along increasingly dangerous routes and increasing disrespect for the laws of war.
The solution, Krähenbühl pointed out, is prevention, through protection of detainees and respect for civilians by States and actors involved in a conflict, in compliance with International Humanitarian Law.
“But when prevention fails, States must provide all available information to families, cooperate with the other party to exchange information and make efforts to clarify the whereabouts of the missing,” he added.
At this point, Krähenbühl recalled the role of the ICRC when it comes to urging States and authorities to do better, through bilateral dialogue and diplomatic engagements.
The opening ceremony of the conference included testimonies from Syrian and Sudanese refugees in Jordan and no Chadrespectively, as well as speeches by relatives of people who disappeared after the 2011 post-election crisis in Ivory Coastbetween others.
The ICRC, an organization with more than a century and a half of history specializing in humanitarian assistance in conflict situations, held the first of these conferences in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia, in 2019.