ICRC CALLS ON ALL SIDES TO RELEASE PRISONERS OF WAR

SARAJEVO, Jan 9 (Hina) - By signing the peace agreement, the three sides in Bosnia-Herzegovina had accepted to release prisoners of war by 19 January, representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Sarajevo, Cristophe Girod, told a press conference in Sarajevo today. He called on all sides to comply with the agreement. Girod further confirmed that Bosnian government representatives yesterday had refused to sign a plan on the release of prisoners of war, made by the ICRC, while the Croat and the Serb side had accepted it. #L# There were 900 registered prisoners of war who should be released, Girod said. The three sides had confirmed that they were holding 600 prisoners, and the ICRC had requested the exchange of additional 300 prisoners, who had been registered by the international organisation. The ICRC had also found out where those prisoners were being kept, Girod said. The release of those prisoners could not be made conditional on ICRC's discovering the fate of a large number of missing persons, and that was something the Bosnian government was insisting on, Girod said. 'These are separate processes and the search for missing persons can last for years', the ICRC representative said, recalling that the ICRC was still searching for the persons who had gone missing during the World War Two. ICRC representatives had collected statements by family members of some 3,000 persons who had been imprisoned during the fall of Srebrenica, but they had managed to visit only 200 of them in Serb prisons. (hina) rm mm 092013 MET jan 96