SARAJEVO SARAJEVO, Aug 28 (Hina) - Chairman of the International Commission for Missing Persons in the region of the former Yugoslavia (ICMP), American Senator Bob Dole, opened in Sarajevo on Monday the Missing Persons Institute
(MPI), a specialised institution whose aim will be to coordinate efforts in shedding light on the whereabouts of several dozen thousands of persons who went missing during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
SARAJEVO, Aug 28 (Hina) - Chairman of the International Commission
for Missing Persons in the region of the former Yugoslavia (ICMP),
American Senator Bob Dole, opened in Sarajevo on Monday the Missing
Persons Institute (MPI), a specialised institution whose aim will
be to coordinate efforts in shedding light on the whereabouts of
several dozen thousands of persons who went missing during the war
in Bosnia-Herzegovina. #L#
During a speech held before representatives of Bosnia-Herzegovina
authorities, members of the diplomatic corps and associations of
families of missing persons from the Podrinje area, Dole pledged
that the international community would not cease supporting the
process of shedding light on the whereabouts of more than 20,000
persons registered as missing even five years after the war in the
country.
Not one process is considered more important for reconciliation and
peace as this one which should help thousands of families who even
today remain prisoners of the past, Dole said.
He stressed the importance of the procedure of analysing DNA
samples taken from gathered mortal remains, which are subsequently
compared to the samples of DNA of family members.
The process, Dole said, would not last 50 to 100 years as had been
foreseen because through the engagement of the best experts and
modern technology the identification of discovered remains will be
fast and certain.
I am here today to say to the families of missing persons, you shall
receive the answers, Dole asserted.
The decision to found the Missing Persons Institute was made in
September 1999 at a meeting of representatives of countries
financing the work of the ICMP.
The Institute was registered this month in line with the laws of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, and will hire a large number of foreign and
local experts.
One of the most important projects for the MPI will be the
identification of the remains of about 4,000 persons which were
found during exhumations in eastern Bosnia.
Remains suspected of belonging to civilians from Serbrenica have
been placed in special concrete warehouses near Tuzla.
Organisations involved in the discovery of missing persons have
been issuing differing reports on the numbers of persons who went
missing during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The most pessimistic
such reports speak of 30,000 missing people.
(hina) lml