Geneva, 30 August 2024 – The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) hosted a three-day workshop in Geneva, Switzerland, this week, bringing together a diverse group of Syrian civil society actors from across the European Union, including representatives of eight associations of families of missing persons and representatives of more than 20 civil society organizations (CSOs) and civil society collectives working on the issue of missing and forcibly disappeared persons from the Syrian context. Discussion centered on strategic objectives to locate the huge number of missing, and the need to forge a common vision for joint action on the missing persons issue.
Participants were briefed on ICMP’s progress in data collection, support for family associations, and international collaboration, and examined ways in which Syrian family associations and CSOs can engage in European and global efforts and act strategically in the absence of cooperation from the Syrian regime. Additionally, participants received a brief from representatives of the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria (IIMP) on its work to date.
Speaking at the opening session, ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger highlighted the need to coordinate the efforts of different groups and ensure that families of the missing are at the center of strategic decision-making. “ICMP has worked with Syrian stakeholders for almost a decade, and we know that it is both necessary and possible to avoid duplication of effort and wasteful allocation of resources. This can be done through proactive coordination, and a key part of this is establishing an effective system of data management.”
The workshop highlighted the need to create a shared, unified data system that incorporates the knowledge and data collected by a variety of organizations, emphasizing that the privacy rights of families and the integrity of their data must be protected. Participants also agreed on the need to put families in the driver seat of the missing persons process and work towards ensuring that Syrian CSOs, including family associations, participate across political divides in actively supporting and influencing policies to find all missing persons and secure the rights of families.
“Holding these meetings is essential to creating a unified, strategic vision, led by Syrians, to address not only the large numbers of missing persons, but the complexity of the issue in the Syrian context,” said Mazin Al Balkhi, Program Manager of ICMP’s Syria/MENA Program. “Many persons are held in incommunicado detention, others are missing from war and human rights abuses, others from the earthquake of February 2023, and still others are missing along migratory routes.”
Participants explored ways of increasing the effectiveness of global efforts to locate Syrian migrants and victims of human trafficking, noting that Europe today has the highest number of dead and missing migrants and refugees in the world.
As many as 200,000 people are estimated to be missing as a result of atrocities committed in Syria before 2011 and in the conflict that has continued since then.
ICMP has worked with Syrian organizations to develop a Central Data Repository on Missing and Disappeared Persons, and more than 70,000 Syrian relatives of the missing have so far submitted data. The Syrian Policy Coordination Group, launched in 2020 and facilitated by ICMP, has developed a series of policy proposals articulating the rights of the missing and disappeared, of detainees and their families. It is hoped that this work will contribute to the efforts of the IIMP, established by the UN in 2023.
The workshop concluded with a discussion of future actions, including recommendations for support to the IIMP and ways to prepare for large-scale efforts to account for missing persons once conditions allow.
The workshop was funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, which provides support to ICMP’s Syria/MENA program.