The coordinator of the department for protection with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mona Sadek, told a news conference in Belgrade, held on the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared, that 18,555 people were listed missing in the area of the former Yugoslavia, according to ICRC figures. Of that number, 13,862 persons are from Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2,409 from Croatia and 2,284 from Kosovo, Sadek said.
"The figures refer to people who went missing in those areas and are not related to their ethnicity," Sadek said.
The ICRC is cooperating with the authorities in the region in an effort to establish the truth about the fate of the missing and speed up exhumations, identification and the return of remains to the families of the disappeared, Sadek said.
The head of the Serbian government Commission for Missing Persons, Gvozden Gagic, told reporters that the Serbian authorities had exhumed, at the request of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, 300 bodies which were buried in Serbia after they were brought there by the Sava and Danube rivers. More than a half of those bodies were identified and handed over to Croatian and Bosnian authorities, Gagic said, adding that the remains of another 80 people, sought by Croatia, remained to be exhumed.
Gagic went on to say that the number of solved cases was below realistic expectations considering the fact that the conflict had broken out more than 15 years ago.
He criticised Croatia for lacking political will to take serious measures to shed light on the fate of those who went missing on the Croatian territory.
The families of the disappeared held a protest meeting in Belgrade's main Trg Republike square, which they continued with a protest walk to the government headquarters. Around 50 people were carrying unlit candles and banners reading "We would like to light candles. Tell us where".