📑 Five priority areas of action for missing persons (Part IV) - Project Milkbox 🥛

In order to respond to the problems linked to the disappearance of persons, a group of remarkable people identified five areas of action at the International Conference of governmental and non-governmental organizations on missing persons, held in Geneva from February 19 to 21 of 2003, by the invitation of the International Committee of the Red Cross. These five areas have been taken up by other international instances

IV. Treatment of human remains and information relating to deceased persons

• The failure to identify people who have died in situations of armed conflict or internal violence contributes to a significant increase in the number of missing persons. In recent situations of armed conflict or internal violence, there have been little signs of consideration and respect towards the deceased.

• State authorities and organized armed groups are primarily responsible for the proper treatment of human remains and information about the deceased. In particular, measures must be taken to transfer the deceased and to exhume unidentified human remains when necessary and in the shortest time possible; to gather as much information as possible about human remains and the events that led to the death of a person; to preserve all the human remains that were not returned to the relatives; to inform families when one of their members has died, give them the corresponding death certificate, return all personal effects and, when possible, the mortal remains. The method adopted for the identification of human remains must be adapted to each context and accepted by all interested parties before starting the identification process.

Main source: https://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/other/icrc_002_1117.pdf
Funds for this posts will be used to support different Red Cross initiaves and missing persons organizations.