The Hague, 9 July 2024: The Government of the Netherlands announced today that it is supporting the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in helping Ukraine locate tens of thousands of missing persons from the ongoing war through a grant of 2 million Euros.
“This support will enable ICMP to help Ukraine continue to build a sustainable process to locate and identify missing persons in a manner that is in line with the Rule of Law,” ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger said today. “The scale of the missing persons problem in Ukraine exceeds to the ability for any one state, particularly one that is fighting an ongoing war to account for missing persons in a manner that also secures the rights of hundreds of thousands of families to justice, truth and reparations. Ukraine needs our collective and staunch support.”
“I emphasize the unwavering support of the Dutch government for Ukraine,” said Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Caspar Veldkamp, today.” The Netherlands will support ICMP to enhance Ukraine’s capacity for forensic research, data collection, and analysis.”
In April 2022, the authorities in Ukraine requested urgent ICMP assistance, and ICMP responded immediately with deployments to help Ukrainian institutions access high-volume, DNA-led identification capabilities; and to help the authorities ensure that evidence is collected, including evidence from mass and clandestine graves admissible in criminal trials. ICMP is supporting laboratory operations, data collection, and mass grave investigations, and is working with civil society and families of the missing to ensure their effective participation in the missing persons process. ICMP has signed agreements with the responsible ministries and government agencies in Ukraine and has developed a five-year strategy to help the authorities account for the large and growing number of missing persons.
The Netherlands has been a major supporter of ICMP since the late 1990s and was one of the original signatories to the treaty which established ICMP as an intergovernmental organization in 2015. ICMP moved its laboratories and Headquarters to The Hague in 2016. Former Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders is a member of ICMP’s Board of Commissioners.
About ICMP
ICMP is a treaty-based intergovernmental organization with Headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands. Its mandate is to secure the co-operation of governments and other authorities in locating persons missing as a result of conflicts, human rights abuses, disasters, organized violence and other causes and to assist them in doing so.